LED Lantern-style Lamp

Winter is coming quickly this year and it is getting dark early again. Since my big ceiling light has a pretty cold bulb in it, the light it produces really doesn’t make me feel very comfy, hence I usually turn it off and use a few different ambient lights all around the room instead.

Now unfortunately I didn’t have any additional lighting on my dining table yet and that was a problem, so I created this Lantern-style lamp which produces are really nice, warm and soft lighting, but see for yourself...

• ~1.5m of roughly 30x30mm wooden slats of nice quality
• ~2m of thin, 10x10mm wooden square slats
• some transparent/silky paper (size: height of lamp shade x 4-times width of lamp shade)
• linen fabric of your choice (same size as paper)
• a bit of plywood (size: base size of lamp shade)
• wood glue
• optional: dark wood stain
• an E27 (or similar) lamp socket, appropriate mains cable with in-line switch

All the 30x30mm wood pieces need to be cut with a wood saw. I used a small handsaw at first but then switched to a table saw later on since I was able to make the cuts more straight with it.

After you have cut all the segments, they need to be glued to one another. A small rectangle–jig and lots of clamps are very helpful at this point. Please take your time here, make sure every joint is aligned and wait for one to dry before continuing with the next one. You will be glad you took your time once you have completed a straight and strong main frame for your lamp.

The exact dimensions are up to your imagination. Just use the images as an inspiration, but create the shape or your own desire :)

Next, all the 10x10mm wood needs to be cut. There are four pieces 20cm in length and eight pieces 13cm in length. You have got to make sure all pieces have an equal length – which is more important than their exact absolute length!

For glueing them I used the jig shown above again. First I made two of the large rectangles and then connected them with the remaining four short wood pieces.

Next up is the process of making and then attaching the lamp shade.

For that I used some transparent paper which I cut 22cm in height (2cm taller than my lantern cuboid) and 61cm in length (1cm longer than the circumference of the cuboid).

The fabric shown here is some linen fabric. It has some thinner and some thicker strands in it which makes it look awesome when light is shining through it.

I then applied lots of wood glue to the transparent paper, spread it evenly with an old credit card and put the fabric over it. After it had dried a bit I cut off the excess fabric except for a 1cm margin all around, which was then folded over and glued to the backside of the paper.

Even though I put some weights all over the lampshade during the drying process I unfortunately wasn’t able the avoid having some dents and creases in the paper – I need to be more careful there next time.

After all the glue had pretty much dried it was time to wrap the shade around our lantern cuboid. I used wood glue in each corner again.

What you will end up with should look something like the second image in this step. There should be 1cm on the top and 1cm on the bottom overlapping the cuboid which need to be cut in a 45 degree angle in all 8 corners, then folded over and glued to the top and bottom side.

We now need to attach our lantern cuboid to the main frame. For that purpose I cut a plus-shaped piece out of plywood. The diameter of the inner circle is equivalent to that of the E27 lamp socket I used and the legs are cut to size to fit in the bottom of the cuboid.

Before we can glue anything though, the cable needs to be fed through the bottom of the main frame as well as aforementioned attachment piece. The ends of the cable need to then be fixed inside your lamp socket of choice.

At this point you’ll be pretty much done. A few last dabs of glue here and there, some furniture glides on the bottom and a nice and warm LED bulb in the socket and your awesome looking table lamp will be done.