I’ve always had a fascination with light fixtures that I can’t explain. I love them. Probably more than I love paint or even most furniture. To me, there is nothing more satisfying than changing the way light passes through a room. When we moved in, each room had uninspiring, bland light fixtures, which we started switching out in the last post. But instead of shopping online for the office fixture, this one kind of found me. We had just closed on the house about a week earlier and were browsing one of my favorite salvage stores in Exeter for pulls, knobs, faucets, or anything else that could fit with the vintage-yet-streamlined style of the brand new (to us) place. We popped in next door to Cam’s, a kind of hit-or-miss dusty costume/secondhand/mishmash shop where I’ve found some good deals on vintage art in the past. One of the things I remembered them for was tying old light fixtures up on the ceiling beams, and since I knew we’d need a bunch of them, I wanted to check out my options.
This fixture was right above the door when we walked in. It was covered in dust and contained a junky plastic candelabra insert. But it was also in perfect condition, solid as a rock, and probably 30lbs. I didn’t know how to re-wire anything, but for this guy I could figure it out. We haggled a price, and then haggled a cash discount (which is funny because I think they’re cash only, but whatever) and the entire purchase came out to $200. Not cheap, but for such a unique fixture, I’ll take it.
From the first time I saw it, I wanted it for the office. I assume that it originally hung in an entryway, but ours isn’t large or grand enough for a hanging pendant like this. M wasn’t so convinced, but I dug up some photos of similar pendants in offices, and he let me be a little insane and go with it. Both of the following images are by Emily Henderson, of course. This whole project screams “what would EH do?”
I actually can’t find any info about this particular pendant online anywhere, so if you have any ideas about where it came from or even when it was made, please let me know.
So I got it home, wiped it down, and totally took it apart. The whole thing needed to be rewired no matter what, so I just took the candelabra piece out and studied how the whole thing pieced together.
Look how shiny!
I drew out a diagram, measured, browsed youtube for too many hours, and ordered parts.
For anyone attempting something similar, I got the canopy set and keyless socket from Antique Lamp Supply, the cloth wire from Snake Head Vintage, and the edison bulb and wire nuts from Amazon. Everything else was salvaged from the original pieces.
And then I realized the cloth wire I ordered was too large to fit through the rest of the pieces, and re-ordered another gauge. So yeah, this part took a while.
I got it to about 90%– everything was connected and in order, but I didn’t really have a plan for how the bulb would hang inside the shade. My idea was a figure-8 knot, which would have looked cool, but I left it partially in pieces so that if I was totally wrong, the electrician who was hanging our other fixtures could have saved us from setting the house on fire.
This guy is amazing and actually used to rewire lamps as a kid, so he saw it and instantly knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t like my figure-8 knot idea… apparently the screws on the socket itself aren’t supposed to hold *any* weight, not even the weight of the bulb. He said the socket had to be connected to the canopy by a threaded rod, which he happened to have in his van. So where you see “cut piece of theaded rod” and “gold cloth covered wire” above in the diagram, he has actually just put a new threaded rod (I thought I could use my dremel to salvage this piece from the candelabra insert, but it was too short– the threaded rod actually goes all the way up into the canopy on the other side of the glass and connects to the loop which holds the chain… super sturdy)
So he finished assembling it his (official) way and hung it for me, and dear god it looks AHMAZING.
Oooo, aah…
I don’t even really mind the look of the threaded rod, although the knot would have looked way cooler. I think I might wrap some washi tape around it just for a pop of color, but I’m not 100% on that yet.
This light turned out better than I imagined. This thing went from a total mess to a stunner, and was a quarter the price of anything similar I can find online. Sometimes instead of working I just sit here and stare at it. Maybe that explains the migraines.
What do you think?
❤ v
giftable@home 
