Floor lamp fun

Upcycling this lamp has been so much fun.  My inspiration came from a lamp we bought at an art gallery in Floyd, VA a few weekends ago.  It's way more refined and finished but it gave me something to strive for.  Here's the inspiration lamp by Susan Icove.

This lamp was made from all kinds of interesting things like copper piping, rubber tubing, bread basket, cake tin, fire place tool stand, rubber gasket, topped off by an awesome shade.

After bringing home the cool lamp I remembered we had this very old rusty floor lamp in our basement so I decided to clean it up.  It's probably from the 20s or 30s and no longer worked.  Neither James nor I can remember where it came from.  Originally it had a globe on the top but it's long been missing.

The base was rusted through.

I cleaned and sanded everything and removed all the old cracked wiring then cleaned, repainted and  rewired it.  I replaced the candelabra sockets and had to buy a socket reducer for the upper bulb because it was for a mogul bulb and it's hard to find them anymore.  Now we can use a regular light bulb.  I did a preliminary wiring to see if switches worked.

Above the sanded, repainted base I put some vinyl albums (Urban Cowboy and Mary Poppins).

A little higher is a plumbing hose I found at Home Depot on the sale rack for $3.00.  Atop the hose is a piece of copper, forming the plate beneath an old pewter cream pitcher.

I'm not finished with the candelabras yet but you can see here how I used another small piece of copper to place a cloisenet napkin ring on that James got from his grandparents.  All the candelabras will have them and I'll also place copper tubing over the cardboard that covers the sockets.

Where the old globe used to be now sits a chocolate vodka bottle that I cut the bottom out of.

Resting on the neck of the bottle is the center of an angel food cake pan that I drilled holes in and will eventually rivet the copper shade to.

The lamp shade is made from a piece of leftover roofing copper that I cut, hammered, torched, bent and riveted.  Here it is before forming it into a shade.

And here's the shade almost complete.

It may not be up to artist, Susan Icove's standards but I don't pretend to be an artist.  I just love to create things and see what I can learn in the process.