Drum Shade Chandelier

Happy New Year everyone!  Now that the holidays are over and everything is put away, I got the itch to do a project.  Lord knows I have a ton of them sitting on the back burner waiting to be completed, so it felt good to start the new year with actually completing something.  I am off to a good start, woohoo.

A couple of moths ago I had posted a picture of this light fixture I had gotten for my daughter Shannon’s dining room area during the renovation stage of their house.  Loved it.

It was perfect for the space.  It fit both their decorating styles, a little bling for Shannon and stream lined look for Nate.  Here is a picture of it hung during the renovation construction

But unfortunately we had to send it back.  We noticed that once it was turned on and actually was being used, the paper around the shade that had all the bling on it started warping from the heat of the light bulbs.  I guess no one thought of that when they designed it.  We were so bummed, but it just started looking like a really cheap light fixture the more they used it.  Overstock.com let us return the fixture with no problems.  They have the best customer service and you can’t beat their prices!  So for about 2 months now there has been no light fixture in Shannon and Nate’s dining room.  It was hard to find the right fixture to compliment their styles without spending a ton of money and not looking cheap.  The drum shade style of the old fixture really looked good in their house, so I was on the hunt for something along those lines.  I have always loved these type of drum shade chandeliers

via Horchow

But they are pricey!  And the ones that aren’t so pricey look cheap.  I thought I could make one, I mean really, all it is a drum shade with a chandelier inside of it.  There are a lot of beautiful inexpensive chandeliers you can buy.  All I needed to do was find the right shade and chandelier. But I was having a hard time finding a large enough drum shade that would fit over a small chandelier.  Until a week ago, when I saw this lampshade at a local store in Solana Beach, called Bon Bons.  It was pricey, $125, but oh so beautiful.  It is by a designer called Cindy Ciskowoki, here is a picture of it on a table lamp from her website

It is a linen flax color with a slightly shimmery silver/blue damask pattern. It is way more prettier in person, these pictures don’t do it justice.

Then an idea just hit me when I was in the store drooling all over this shade.  I had an old PB Teen chandelier at home that I have been holding on to for 4 years. thinking I would find a use for it someday.  {you know, one of those items you just can’t part with when you are purging and organizing this time of year} I thought it would fit nicely inside this shade but wasn’t certain, and this shop has a no return policy.  So I crossed my fingers and bought the shade. The whole time I was  justifying in my head that the the finished  light fixture is going to be pretty darn cheap compared to those high priced ones I love.   For $125, which was about the cost of the previous overstock fixture,  I could get that classy drum shade chandelier look I wanted for the space.   If worse came to worse, and the chandelier wouldn’t fit inside, I knew I could buy a hanging pendant lamp socket from Ikea and a diffuser from Lampsplus and still have a really nice fixture for them.   Shannon was with me when I bought it and she also feel in love with the shade and loved my idea on how we could use it.

And phew!  The shade fit perfectly over the chandelier.  I swear it was if it was made for it.  I had to have my husband make a slight adjustment to get the shade over the main arm of the chandelier, it took him a whole 5 minutes.  All he had to do was take off the top decorative piece so that the shade could slide on.   It sits just right to show the bottom of the chandelier, just like all those fancy smancy expensive ones.

{this is a picture of the inside of the fixture and how it looks with the shade on}

This chandelier comes with draped beading,  I was going to change it out to crystals chains that I have, but Shannon liked the bead look, so I just added on some hanging crystal drops to the beaded ones it came with.

They both love it!  I surprised them yesterday and had my husband hang it while they were at work and they were blown away when they came home.  Mission accomplished.    I would show you pictures of the whole room, but the lighting was poor (I wasn’t even happy with these pictures I took, the chandelier looks more yellow than it is) and honestly there is nothing sitting under the chandelier but a rug, so it looked kind of funny when I uploaded the pictures.  Now all I have to do is help them find a table and some chairs to go underneath it and that room will be complete.  Day 5 of 2011 and I already have one project done, I think this might be a good year for me.

PS. Anyone surprised the drum shade I fell in love with was a damask print?  I didn’t think so.

Linking up to Jen’s Weekend Wrap up Party at Tatertots & Jello