Tuesday, December 18, 2012

A little project with some Japanese silk

Don't get me wrong, I like Ikea.  But there are some things they do better than others.  Bathmats - YES!  Lights - NO!  All their lights, especially the table lights, only allow very low wattage light bulbs, which means that you need about twelve to get enough light to read.  
Our front room/living room is fairly dark because it just has one main light in the center of the ceiling.  We already replaced what was there with a much better, brighter, light, but still, if you're in the corners, you need more light.  An Ikea floor lamp serves us well behind our love seat (also Ikea!).  But even though we had two cool lime green table lamps on our dining room table, we still couldn't see worth a darn when reading or eating.  

So last weekend we headed over to Lowe's and bought a better lamp with a plain off-white shade.  And then used a piece of kimono silk to recover it, using Momtastic's instructions.  I recommend looking the instructions over before you get started...a flat piece of fabric won't work unless you want pleats.  You have to make a curvy pattern to make it fit the shade smoothly.

The before (use your imagination), an off-white shade.  The after?  See below.  And no comments on the photography, please!  ;-)


Music?!  How about Shine a Light?

2 comments:

  1. Oooh, I love that you've brought some precious & very beautiful fabric into your every day living. Looks very classy & so much better than IKEA- agreed!!

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    Replies
    1. I have bits & pieces from all our travels...this from a kimono shop in central Japan. We bought a bunch of kimono from them, then I couldn't resist a big batch of silk scraps!

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