Do it yourself lighting is one of my favorite types of projects to tackle. Lighting (well beautiful lighting) can be seriously expensive. But guess what?! It doesn’t have to be! There are so many cool components that you can find around your local hardware store that can be put together to create a serious show stopper.

Originally the plan for the lighting in Ashy’s room was to hardwire this light. I mean, the design is perfect for the space, right? We got it installed and had a problem.

A one light bulb problem.

This room is so ginorm that having a light with just one bulb was not cutting it. As I was problem solving different solutions (where to put wall sconces, lamps etc.) I realized that we really just needed a different light.

Just a side note, if you are at your local hardware store and you see a crazy looking lady in paint clothes, sitting on the floor surrounded by pipe fittings with a wild look on her face, just keep your head down and don’t make eye contact.

The great thing is that after the wild look passes, she probably has a pretty great plan.

Here is what you need: (I bought the hardware supplies at Home Depot and Lowes. Locally, Lowes seems to have a bigger selection of copper fittings.)

(4) ceramic light sockets

(4) 1 1/2” x 3/4” Reducing Coupling

(4) 3/4” x 1/2” Fitting Reducer

(4) 1/2” Threaded Adaptor Fitting (Male)

(5) Washers

(5) Pipe Nuts

(4) 10” pieces of 1/2” pipe

(1) 8” piece of 1/2” pipe (or measured to the length that you want your fixture to hang)

(2) 1/2” copper push-fit male adaptor pieces

(1) Threshold Utensil Caddy

(1) Threshold Bowl

12’ of lamp wire

Loctite 5 Minute Epoxy

Drill with 1/2” Drill Bit, and 3/4” spade bit

Start by taking apart the ceramic sockets. Right now, we just want the metal base.

Using your epoxy, glue it to the inside of the reducing coupling (make sure that it is straight!)  Let it set for at least 5 minutes. (Be aware of any drips down the inside, they will cause problems when you attach your next piece)

Add a small amount of glue to the inside of your Reducing Coupling, push the Fitting Reducer into the bottom of it.

Add a small amount of glue to the inside of your Fitting Reducer and attach 1 of the 10” pieces of pipe.

Repeat 3 times. These are your arms!

The heart of this light is a wooden utensil holder from Target (couldn’t find it online, but it is still in store). Originally I was picturing 2 wooden bowls sandwiched together, but I think this worked out to be significantly easier. Using a 3/4” spade bit, mark and drill a hole in the dead center of each side of your box. Even with a 3/4” hole, you will need to ream it out a little bit more so that the Male Fitting Adaptor will fit inside.

These were a little hard to hand screw in, so on some I used a socket wrench (you can see the mark that it left on the top of the box). Just be careful to not make your hole too big when you ream it, this adds a lot of stability to your arms. You are going to do this on all 4 sides, as well as the top. The only difference is that the top gets a Push-Fitting, instead of a simple adaptor.

Next, put your washers and nuts on the threads inside the box.

Attach the top piece of copper (mine was 8” long) to your push fitting.

Cut 5 pieces of lamp wire so that they are 20” in length (this will give you some wiggle when you are wiring) and thread one through each of your lamp arms.

Wire your socket according to the instructions found on the packaging (don’t forget to put the red rubber piece on first!)

Because we are making a light with multiple sockets, be EXTRA sure that you are wiring the hot lines to the same colored screw in each socket (i.e. all of the hot lines go to the gold screw, and the neutral lines go to the silver one.)  You will be able to tell which wire is hot because there is a small ridge on the edge of that wire to differentiate the hot from the neutral.

When all of your arms are wired, put a small amount of glue on the inside of your Male Adaptor Fitting and push them on, so that the wire is INSIDE your box.

Using large wire nuts, join all 5 of the hot wires together (4 from the arms, 1 from the top) and all 5 of the neutral wires together.

Now its time to install!

We had to move the junction box so that the light could hang in the right spot of the room. Please please please for the love of all that is good in this world, DO NOT do this if you don’t know what you are doing. Hire an electrician to spend 25 minutes at your house. Ok?! When we moved the junction box, we left the electrical inside the old one and piggy backed the new wire from there. It is illegal to permanently cover a hole that still has live wire inside it. To disguise it (without making the ceiling feel like a land mine) we used a simple cover and put putty on it to sort of match the ceiling pattern. If you look at it, it is very clearly there, but if you aren’t trying to notice it, it doesn’t jump out at you. The most important part is that it is a temporary solution and can be spotted and opened up easily.

For our ceiling mount, I bought this bowl from Target, and used my table saw to cut most of the sides off. I left a small 1/2” lip. If you don’t have access to a table saw, you could use a wooden plate, or even a regular cover and spray paint it copper.

Drill a hole in the center of your mount, and attach the second Push Fitting as well as the washer and nut to the opposite side.

Measure on your junction box the distance between the screws, and drill into your mount. If you are using screw caps like we did, you will need to have them hanging down before you can mount your light (if you look closely in the picture below you can see the screws.

This is where you wire your light. No pictures, because I was the one holding it up, but don’t forget this minor step.

Put the mount on the ceiling with the screws coming through the holes, and attach screw caps. I was a little nervous about just having the screws holding the light up, but after talking with an employee at the hardware store and having him point out giant hanging lights that had the same style mount, I felt so much better about it.

(The pic below was of the dry run, you can see that there are no wires coming through. When you are installing it for real,  the light will be hanging down.)

Once the ceiling mount is installed and wired, push the copper pipe into the Push Fitting and TA DA! your light is done!!

I didn’t cover the hole at the bottom because the wires are tucked up inside it so far, but it would be cute to put a piece of copper contact paper or something on the bottom if you feel like it needs it.

Questions? Leave them below!

The post DIY Copper and Wood Hanging Light Fixture appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

The amazing desk in Alicia’s Office was not always so amazing.

I found it at the DI (Utah’s version of the Goodwill) almost a year ago. I love that it was metal and industrial and it was $18.

The rust, mismatched knobs, peeling veneer top, and chippy paint were doing this cute guy no favors.

It sat on the side of my house for months because I couldn’t part with it, but I didn’t have anywhere to put it (I know you guys feel my pain!)

When I teamed up with P&G and The Home Depot, this desk was my jumping off point. It was finally going to get the makeover it deserved!

The wood veneer top peeled right off,  do you think it has anything to do with the Southern Utah heat?

It had been painted multiple times, and the paint was really thick. So the parts where it was chippy had some major texture issues. Sanding it down would have been an option, but I was really hoping that we could get a good metal finish patina out of it so I stripped it with Citristrip (just like I did to Macie’s desk).

The metal wasn’t quite right, but stripping it cleaned off all of the drippy chippy paint, so it worked out.

I started by priming the entire piece with Kilz. It is my favorite hands down. There are 2 things to remember when you are working with Kilz,  shake it really really well, like for 3 minutes well. It has a super thick formula and separates in the can. And 2, you will need to lightly sand it with 220 grit sandpaper after it has dried. Because the formula is so thick the overspray is substantial enough that it leaves texture on your piece. There isn’t really a way to avoid it but just lighting wiping it off with a piece of sandpaper makes it disappear.

Once your primer is finished it is time to paint! I used Krylon Classic Gray. It is a really great medium gray that isn’t too blue or too brown. When you are using this color you want to shake it really well too. It seems to harbor little dark fugitive bubbles that completely change the color of the paint when they escape.

After your gray paint has had time to cure (usually around an hour) you are ready for the next color. Use Scotchblue Delicate painter tape and a few garbage bags to cover the base that you have already painted. The paint is still super fresh so just push the tape on lightly. I pushed it on so lightly that in the picture below the middle section fell off a little. Whoopsie. Just make sure that the part that you are spraying is covered.

Paint the drawers white and give them a chance to try too.

The piece had single screw pulls in all of the drawers and instead of patching them, I decided to just over them up with new pulls.

The ones that we used were bin pulls from HD. We gave them a quick coat of gold spray paint and let them cure.

**Most spray paints work really well on metal,  but you have to let them cure the full time (16-24 hours) because you really put them to use. I have cursed many a metal spray painting project because I didn’t have to willpower to not manhandle it. Spraying pulls works fantastically, you just have to be patient.

(The screws on the front are fake, so you don’t need to worry about touch up after they are installed!)

As daunting as it can sound, painting a piece of furniture is one of the BEST things that you can do for your house. It is like an instant facelift!

Check out the other tutorials from Alicia’s Office makeover here!

The post How To Spray Paint A Metal Desk appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

When I got home from Home Depot a few days ago,  Court was cleaning out the garage. I am obviously a hoarder of amazing things that look like garbage. He doesnt have the vision and frequently throws away treasures. You can image what this does to me.

I flew out of my car and was like “What are you throwing away?! I need it alllllllllllll!! (and possibly an intervention) Court held up a few ugly lampshades that would not work for anyone. ever. to try and prove the point that not everything is worth saving.

Unfortunately for him my best ideas are spontaneous. Bring it. Oh it has been brought-en.

I LOVE a good lamp. The subsequent reality of the situation is that I have about a million ugly lampshades. Every time I look at them I die a little inside. I know they could be something amazing, so I hang onto them, but lets be honest, they are not shooting to the top of anyone’s must do list.

That is, until today.

All you need to make these eye popping lights, is an ugly lampshade with a wire frame inside and a few simple supplies. (I posted a picture of the shade on the right on Instagram yesterday and it became immediately clear how much better filters make everything look. It didn’t look half bad, but IRL it is granny…and not in a cool hipster way. In a mother-of-the-bride dress sheathing kind of way.)  Sorry to fool you guys with my mad filtering skillz.

Lets get started!

Cut off all of the fabric and pull off all of the glued on bits until you are left with this:

Its is the skeleton of the lampshade! Get it? Skeleton shade?!

I gave my lamp bones a coat of Krylon Copper Spray Paint.

Then I used some lamp wire I had from another project and wired a basic socket on the inside of the lampshade. To do this you will need:

(1) Pull String Light Socket ($3.49) at Home Depot

(1) 1/2” threaded nipple

(1) Washer

(1) Hex Nut

The desired length of Lamp Wire.

* If you are spray painting your socket do it before you move on to the next step!

Start by threading on your cord the hex nut and the washer. Feed the cord through the top of the lampshade.

Then thread your cord through the nipple and the base of your socket.

This next step is super important so pay attention! The weight of the skeleton shade is going to be on the socket. Normally you would buy a special tension socket for this, but because our shades are so light we are going to use  everyone’s favorite DIY Fix All…Hot Glue!

Tie a knot in your wire and fill it nice and full with hot glue. I like to pull the wire up while I am doing this to make sure that it is inside the nipple too. This is going to take the pressure off of the actual wiring and move it to the entire socket. Also please make sure that you leave enough cord that you can still wire your socket!

Once it is wired push the 2 pieces together REALLY hard. You will hear a soft pop when it is connected.

Then just stick the nipple into the top of the shade and attach the hex nut.

That’s it. Not even 10 minutes later we have these fun and unique light fixtures.

And you can get as creative as you want. I had a lot of extra cord so I tied it up and let the socket hang on this light. It breaks up the monotony a little.

 (Tutorial for the leather pillow here)  (Need another simple lampshade update? Click here)

I win. Sorry Court.

UPDATE! The light bulbs that I used can be found at Home Depot and Lowes. They are not going to be available once the supplies sell out (because the US is no longer producing or importing filament bulbs) So get them while you can!

I have also had a few questions about where they plug in. I pulled the cords out of the picture, but they run down the wall and plug in behind the couch. They look really cute like that (because of the sweet cords).

Now to the fun part that involves YOU! Whenever I bring a new treasure home Court just looks at me and says “Where are you going to put that?” And then I happily float into the garage and add it to the treasures that are taking up my half. (Ok it is more like two thirds. But who is measuring?)

The problem in this situation is that I have treasures that I have long forgotten about. And who can forget the ever present “But I cant get rid of that, I might use it!” excuse?

So here is what we are going to do. It is a fun thing I like to call MOTIVATION! Once a month we are going to have a Rock What Ya Got party. You can play along on Vintage Revivals by linking up a blog post,  or on instagram using the #rockwhatyagotparty hashtag.

Here is the other deal. This link up is for new projects only. I get it,  you are excited about that dresser that you painted last June and still want everyone to see it. But this is not that. We are doing NEW projects. New. Like sparkly newborn baby new. Yes? The whole point is to do something new. How about if I throw one more NEW in there for effect? New.

So here are a few things you need to know about our fun new club:

The Rock What Ya Got party will be opening the 3rd Monday of every month and will be open for one week.

Feel free to link up any type of project, as long as it is using something that you already had at home. (You can obviously buy a few supplies to work your magic)  The project has to be (say it with me!) NEW!

I will be sharing some of my favorites every month on my social media channels and in the Vintage Revivals newsletter!

If you have any fun fight for the garbage stories, I want to hear all about them!!

The post Rock What Ya Got: Upcycled Copper Wire Pendant Lights (from ugly lampshades!) appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

I love when someone comes up with a design that is just so genius that it sticks with you for YEARS. You may remember a few years ago on Design Star Courtland created these amazing wall sconces out of Copper Pipe.

They were a huge part of the inspiration for the conduit wall sconces in my living room and for the coat rack in Dylan’s Room.

One problem that I was running into while I was putting the finishing touches on her bulldog cork mural wall was a phenomenon that I have never experienced before.

In real life everything looked great, but once it was shot the space looked completely barren. It was super confusing and frustrating to say the least. So like the great DIY Houdini I needed to pull an idea out of, well, somewhere… and FAST.

A coat rack was on my list of ideas but I was thinking knobs on a board kind of coat rack. After I taped off the space with painters tape to see where I was size wise it was still too sparse. I needed something to fill the ENTIRE space. Luckily for me Courtland’s pipe lights zoomed out of the back of my brain and I was on my way to Lowes.

When you are buying copper tubing for this project you need to get PLUMBERS tubing. Its thin and easy to cut and perfect for this project.

You will need to decide the height of your coat rack and how many you want, to determine how much copper you will need (mine are 33’” high) and you will need to factor in an additional 5-6” for each of the actual hooks. You will also need (2) 90 degree elbows,  1 cap (they look like chapstick lids),  2 brackets for each rack, and pipe cutters.

I ended up with (2) 1/2” x  8’ pipe lengths,  and plumber’s value packs of the elbows and brackets (they sell 10 in a package)

Start by marking where your pipe needs to be cut.

The pipe cutter that you will need is about $14.00 and is literally the most simple thing in the world to use.

Place it on your tube with the blade on the mark.

Start spinning the entire cutter around your pipe. As it is cutting the pipe you will need to tighten the clamp a little tighter. You can see in the picture below how it is cutting through the pipe.

Then voila! your pipe is cut.

You are going to repeat this process for each of the hook pieces cutting them at 4.5” and 1.5”. The 1.5” pipe is practically invisible, but it is what connects the cap to the elbow and is SUPER important.

If you are using this pipe the way that it is meant to be used you would then solder all of your pieces together…but since we are NOT doing that I used my trusty e6000 to epoxy them together.

(You can use whatever bonding adhesive you have on hand, just make sure that it is clear due to possible seepage. PS. Seepage is one of those nasty words that make you dry heave when you hear it. Like Fleshy, or Yeast, or the way that my husband thinks I feel about the word Shower.)

Evenly space the pipes out and attach them to the wall using pipe brackets (make sure that you get them in the same diameter as the pipe you are using!!)  I attached mine to the wall at different heights to give is just a touch more visual interest.

Another thing that is worth noting,  the pipe is the same width as the chunky baseboard so I didn’t have to worry about how to transition it.

Total cost if you need to buy the pipe cutting tool is around $35.00.

Make sure to check out the rest of Dylan’s room below!

The post DIY Copper Pipe Wall Coat Rack Tutorial appeared first on Vintage Revivals.