Trash to Treasure - Lamp

I was inspired to make this trash to treasure lamp after watching one of David Picciuto's videos on YouTube. David's channel is called Make Something, if you haven't already make sure you check him out as he does some really great projects.

I also wanted to give it my own twist which is why I used pallet wood as a base. Enjoy.

Firstly as you can see the lamp that I started with was very unloved and tired.

I also forgot to take any pictures of the disassembly and painting of the lamp, I removed the plastic tube and the base, this left me with the shade and the metal flexi tube and base connector. Next I applied two coats of spray primer and then three coats of white spay paint sanding lightly in between each coat with P2000.

The base is made from some scrap pallet wood which are five 100mm x 100mm squares. Four of these are then drilled all the way through with a 25mm spade bit in the centre. The last one is only drilled half way through with the spade bit and then drilled with a 10mm bit to create a step. This is to allow for the metal flexi to be connected later.

I wanted the base to have a rustic look and to match the freshly painted white lamp shade. So I decided to make it shabby chic as I find pallet wood always looks at its best in this style.

I started by sanding all of the squares until smooth working through the grades, I then applied one coat of matt white paint once this was dry I sanded around the edges and on the surface using 100 grit paper. This gives you enough control to really give the distressed appearance to the wood. Finally two coats of clear matt varnish and its all ready for assembly.

firstly I started by threading the wire through all of the base pieces, making sure to have them in the correct order. The piece with a stepped spade hole is required on top because this connects to the threaded end of the metal flexi, which is held in place with a nut.

I wanted all of the base pieces to be rotated 45 deg to each other to create a staggered effect. In order to connect all of the pieces I used a really cool trick that I have recently seen that I wanted to test out. In order to give the base strength I wanted to use wood glue, but this alone would have been very difficult to position the pieces in a staggered effect and required multiple glue ups. So as you can see in this picture In between each of the blobs of wood glue I used superglue. Which meant I would get long lasting strength from the wood glue and a fast setting fix from the wood glue. This really did help to position the pieces in place, without having to do multiple glue ups.

Once it was all finished, the last job was to cut a slight grove in the bottom of the base to hold the wire in place so the base would sit flush.

Overall I am really happy with how this has turned out and its inspired me to want to create more up-cycle projects, as this lamp was unused previously. It had sat in my garage for months and now it has a new home on my bedside cabinet and is used daily. I have also pushed myself into a new direction with new challenges and experiences which can only be a good thing.

I hope this has inspired you to make your own, I would also like to thank David for the inspiration and encourage as many as I can to check out his channel.

Appreciate and comments that you have and would love to see any examples that you might have.

Thanks,

Happy Making.