Slight Detour

Livingrooms come in large, small, rectangular, square, lotza windows and bright, few windows and dark, well-lighted and cheerful at night, dimly lit and having an aura of a rendezvous. Some livingrooms are circular, loaded with plate glass and designed mainly as party salons anticipating a crowd. The old concept of livingrooms being "a parlor" full of horsehair chairs and kept in pristine cleanliness to host a straight-backed society visitor has long flown the coop of modern conventionality.
Pole lamps are most usually metal affairs with plastic shades over bare bulbs.
Now pole lamps with plastic shades have absolutely no excuse, none whatsoever, to ever find themselves in a livingroom. It just isn't done. They, by the force of their personalities, should be regulated to the children's playroom or a utilitarian workship.

So you can understand my dilemma when i moved the wheel into the livingroom. I like to work at night, throwing pots or trimming out those already thrown, and light is an absolute necessity.

The designer of this house threw the layout all over the neighborhood. One has to walk a country mile to travel from the livingroom to the master bedroom; the spaces between rooms are cold, austere, harsh and no amount of lighting is going to make these spaces, these rooms, warm and fuzzy like a downy bathrobe on a cold morning.
I used up my large supply of lamps in pursuit of warm and cozy. It just wasn't going to happen.
The livingroom is large and rectangular. Beige walls reflect light so it needs but a few standard lamps to illuminate the space if not with character, at least, with enough brightness to take the edge off of dismally dark. Which is a good thing for with all my lamps designated to the other rooms, my supply of lighting fixtures was now, suddenly, limited.

All this is to say, when the wheel was moved into the livingroom, i needed another lamp. And the only one left was . . . .
Yep! You guessed it. A metal pole lamp with plastic shades.
Now. Creating lampshades has never been high on my list of priorities. Not an accomplishment i wished to undertake. However, as they say, necessity is the madonna of fabrication.
xx
For those of you who, like me, have never attempted a lampshade before, here are a few tips. Start with a wire frame. Not being particularly handy with a soldering iron, this step only wasted a couple of days of my time.
Next. If you happen to have some flat raffia laying about, use it to create a frame for the material. This will slide over the metal frame, so it can be attached to the lamp. Next, using a hot-glue gun attach the material to the raffia frame. Slide the raffia and material frame over the metal one and attach to the lamp.
And walla !!! When you are finished, you may not have a front parlor lamp fit for society visitors, but you will have . . . .
one with character.
Have a bright and well-lit night.
Chae