Industrial Lamp Makeover

Hello, my people!  Thought I'd show you this interesting lamp makeover, which looks pretty fancy but cost just a few bucks.

I started with an old cowboy-themed lamp from a yard sale.

I ripped apart a broken lampshade and attached the upper part of the shade's underwire to my lamp.  Not easy to spot: I attached it upside down, which for some reason looked more interesting.

I added an Edison bulb, knowing it would be on display, not hidden at all.

And finally, I strategically stacked on a bunch of...well, these thingies!

They are called rod chairs; they hold up rebar when pouring concrete foundations.  Awesome looking and really inexpensive - find them at any home improvement store.

How'd I stack them?  Well, it looks complex - but in fact, it's only eight rod chairs.

I connected four vertically, forming a kind of Swiss-cross shape, like so:

I tried a couple of different connection methods.  In the pic above I used aluminum duct tape.  It looked fine, but a bit too bright for my taste.  In the final version I simply wrapped craft wire at the four connection points.

I balanced the Swiss-cross on the wire circle.  Finally, four more rod chairs got perched horizontally on top, where they sit beautifully secure without any connectors at all.  Here's that close up again...

Ahhh, another satisfying hardware store upcycle.  I love how industrial chic it looks, while retaining the worn vintage feel from the little cowboy lamp.  

In case you missed it, check out my post about repurposing the rod chairs into these easy tabletop frames:

Hope you enjoyed this one.  Laters, gators!