How to Make a DIY Metal Basket Pendant Light Fixture

If you have a few odds and ends in your home that you want to upcycle, one of the simplest solutions is to turn these pieces into lampshades. With a little bit of ingenuity and some step-by-step support, you can turn nearly anything into a lampshade — like a metal basket. Follow along with this metal pendant light guide to take an old basket and transform it into something new and unique.

If you’re building your metal pendant light from scratch, you’ll definitely need a few supplies, including:

• Cloth-Covered Wire (Custom Color & Length)
• Socket & Cord Grip
• Socket Cover
• 1-Port Ceiling Canopy
• Light Bulb
• Extra Male Cord Grip
• Extra Female Cord Grip
• Wire Basket
• Wire Stripping Tool (Optional)
• Center Punch (Optional)
• Masking Tape
• Flat-Head Screwdriver
• Drill

When you buy each piece for your wire basket light fixture individually, you can customize the color and finish to match whatever metal basket you have at home. However, you will need to know how to wire your fixture. If you’d rather skip the wiring, purchase a single-port light fixture kit that will come ready to go for your DIY lighting project.

The first step in creating a metal pendant light is taking your cloth-covered cord, socket cover, and barrel cord grip and placing them in front of you. Unscrew the set screw on the cord grip to create an opening for the cord to pass through. String the cord grip onto the cloth-covered cord, making sure the threaded part is facing the end of your cord. Finally, thread the socket cover onto the cord with the open end facing the end of the cord.

Start stripping your wire by wrapping a piece of masking tape over the cord about 1.25” from the end and use your wire stripper to cut over the tape and through the cloth of the cord. Pull off the housing to expose the conductor wires underneath, making sure you don’t cut through them by accident. Now, strip 0.25” on each of the three exposed conductor wires to reveal the copper strands beneath.

With the wires exposed, you want to grab your socket cap, shell, and terminal. Unscrew the screw on the socket cap and insert the green ground wire through the back of the socket cap and pull it out the other end of the terminal opening. Your socket cap should now be sitting securely on your cloth-covered cord. Tighten the screw to hold the wire in place. Now, push through the white and black terminal through the socket cap and pick up your terminal piece.

The terminal has two screws, silver and gold. Unscrew both and put the white wire in the negative terminal (silver) and the black wire in the positive terminal (gold). Tighten both screws back in place to ensure the wires are secure. Push the terminal inside the cap and hold it in place while you twist the cap over the entire thing and lock it into place. Once locked, you will not be able to reopen this portion of your metal pendant light.

With all the pieces of the metal pendant light on your cord, you need to pull the socket cover over the socket cap and push the cord grip all the way down so everything is flush at the end of the cord. Twist the cord grip onto the end of the socket cap and tighten the set screw on the cord.

Now to take care of the most important part of your wire basket light fixture — the basket! Flip your basket bottom side up and place a mark in the center of the bottom. Use the center punch to make a small hole before you start drilling. Drill through the bottom of the basket. 

Make sure your hole is wide enough to run your cloth-covered cord into it but not too wide that your cord grips will fall through.

Run the extra female cord grip onto the other end of your cloth-covered cord (threaded end facing out), followed by the basket shade and extra male cord grip. Arrange the three pieces along the cord so your bulb is in the middle of the basket at the desired height. Now, twist the male cord grip into the female cord grip to secure the cord in place. Tighten down the set screws on both cord grips to finish securing the placement of the pieces for this metal pendant light.

The last part of this metal pendant light project is to wire the other end of the cloth-covered cord into your canopy so that you can place it into the junction box on your ceiling.

Repeat all the wire stripping steps from part one of wiring, removing the cloth housing and the PVC housing on each of the three wires beneath. Grab your canopy and loosen the canopy grip set screw so the wire can go through. Push your wire into the canopy and retighten the set screw to secure everything in place.

Now you’re ready to put the metal pendant light in your preferred spot, screw in the light bulb, and light up your life!