Homemade Drum Pendant Light!

So when I moved into my house there was a typical builders ceiling light in the dinning room area. Lets just say it didn't look so good... So I really wanted to make my own drum pendant light out of funky fabric...... but all the materials to make one were pushing my limit to over 50 dollars. That is just a little too expensive for student especially when the light isn't necessary.

One day I was driving along and someone was throwing out there old chandelier, I picked it up thinking that I could just some how buy a lamp shade and attach it around the chandelier. However I could not find a lamp shade big enough.

So I thought about what I could use to make a drum pendant light. I finally came up with something... my dad is welder so it got me thinking about some type of metal/tin for a lamp shade... when I ask him he said he could get some strap sheet metal from work that I could bend it into a circle to go around the chandelier. It ended up working out perfectly.... here are some pictures and some steps about how I did it.

This is what the light ended up looking like.

This is what the chandelier looked like when I picked it up.

I attached the metal drum to the chandelier with air craft cable.

You can see how I attached it in this photo.

I used a electric screw driver with different sizes of bits to drill through the metal to make a design. After I was done and happy with my design I attach the two ends of the sheet metal together using rivets.

This is what it ended up looking like when I hung it from the ceiling.

Total cost: $2.75 WOW!

chandelier: Free, found it

Sheet Metal: Dad got it from his work

Air craft cable: 25cents a meter, I got 3 meters

Clips for the air craft cable: $2.00

Rivets: I already had a rivet tool and rivets

Falling in Love with Fall!

Living in Canada means that we have Thanksgiving early..... Our Thanksgiving is almost exactly an week away (Oct. 11) which means I am feeling pretty festive. So I thought I would make a post of pictures that inspire my taste of fall decorating. All of these pictures give me the feeling of comfort and warmth around the Thanksgiving holiday.

The top 6 pictures of this post are taken from the pottery barn website. I love there sense of decorating especially around the holidays. They really know how to represent the tradition holiday feel without making it look outdated.





Who says that outdoor lights are only for Christmas, I think they are very well suited for halloween. (when displayed right...)
The wreath looks awesome above the fireplace which is just added on top of a mirror that was already there.
I love the tradition warm welcome of the leaf garland around the front door.

I thought these pumpkins were adorable, quick and affordable decoration for anyones house.

I love the idea of bringing pumpkins inside, it makes it easy to bring that punch of colour that screams fall without redecorating your whole house.

The Must Haves.... In a House

In My Dream House, I would have to have..........

Big Glass doors to the back yard....

A white kitchen with a big window above the sink...
A kitchen open to the family room...
Big living areas....
A breakfast nook with huge windows.....
Big formal living area near the front of the house......
A Big Inviting entrance.....

This Big Chest of Mine!!

So it has been forever since my last post, I just moved in to my new house for the school year. The house is finally shaping up however over the summer I did a few projects.

My boyfriend and I decided to build a Big Wooded Chest..... lets just stay it we thought it would be a lot easier then it was.

My room in my new house ended up to be a lot bigger then I thought.... So I came up with the idea to build a chest for the end of my bed to put extra sheets and blankets in. However after moving it in.... it kinda ended up being a perfect place for to store my textbooks and blinders.

Here is a few pictures of the chest before all the finishing touches.

My big giant box!

So I can say that his box turned out a little bigger then I hoped and also (a little ugly)..... oh well thats what happens when you just make up the design off the top of your head without a plan. The whole box was made out of 2x4... which we got for free (the advantages of having a boyfriend that works in the construction business).... so we had to rip most of the 2x4's in half into 1x4's with a table saw. (glad we still have our fingers)

The great lengths you go to when your a struggling student!

The finished product!!!

So in total this project ended up costing us around 20 dollars!

Hardware - $6.00 for handles and hinges

Paint - $10.00 mistint from benjamin moore

Screws - around $4.00 plus I already had some in the garage.