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If you drive with a broken turn signal lens, police can stop you and issue a “fix-it” ticket that requires you to replace the broken lens with a good one matching original-equipment specifications or pay a hefty fine. A do-it-yourselfer can replace a broken turn signal lens assembly on most makes of cars. The details will vary from one car make to another, but the basic process is the same for all cars.
The steampunk aesthetic is a combination of science fiction whimsy, Victorian fashion and industrial-age functionality. Steampunk clothing and accessories often combine copper and brass elements with futuristic details. You can make a relatively simple steampunk lamp using metal pipes, oddly-shaped lightbulbs and a swag lamp kit available at hardware and lighting stores.
Have you ever thought of cutting down your electricity bill by lighting your room with potato power? In July 2010 Israeli researchers began looking for a way to provide inexpensive power to developing countries using potatoes after they found that a boiled potato can give off up to 10 times more electricity than a raw potato, determining that a single potato could provide the energy of half an AA battery at a much cheaper cost. You can make an extra-powerful potato lamp of your own with this new method.
Pendant lights are a stylish way to add additional light to any room. However, store-bought pendant lights are expensive. And, finding the one that matches your exact design style can be difficult. To remove the cost and frustration of finding the perfect pendant light, make your own. Using poster board and wire hangers, create a chic pendant light to brighten up your home without breaking the bank.
Capiz shells come from paper-thin bivalves. The surface of the shell is translucent with a mother of pearl sheen. They have been used to make windowpanes, candle holders and even lampshades. Although you could purchase a capiz shell lampshade, making your own requires little effort. Crafting the lampshade allows you to make it to the size and design you prefer.
A fixed lamp light box helps diffuse the light of a flash. Your flash sits at the center of an open box, which is affixed to a pole or stand. The diffused light creates more attractive portraits and images, softening harsh lines and damping garish shadows. Although there are professional-grade light boxes available for purchase, you can make a light box yourself for your flash. You don't have to be an expert handyman to make this work, though it does help if you have some familiarity with do-it-yourself crafts.
A wooden tripod lamp can be a great addition to any room. Making your own wooden tripod lamp is a fun, simple project, and it will cost just a fraction of the price compared to one purchased from a store. A wooden tripod can be bought online or at a craft store, or you may find one in your own home if you have an old camera tripod you no longer use. Once you have your wooden tripod, you're ready to make a stylish, inexpensive lamp that will light up a room and be a conversation starter.
Salt lamps are created by illuminating salt crystals with a low-watt light bulb. These light fixtures provide a relaxing atmosphere for any room and may cleanse the air of allergens or irritants. Salt lamps are available in a variety of sizes and styles in stores and online. They can also be created easily and inexpensively at home by inserting a lamp kit into a bowl of your choice and filling the bowl with salt crystals.
A boudoir is a bedroom or sitting room, but in terms of home decor style it has come to represent the French style popularized by Marie Antoinette and the rest of her contemporaries. Give your bedroom a boudoir-style makeover one piece at a time, starting with a simple little project: a boudoir style lamp. Give your old lamp a new life in boudoir style.
Do-it-yourself installation of wall lighting, like ceiling lighting, requires that the power supply and embedded electrical boxes be in place already (or installed by a certified electrician). Wall fixtures are all designed to fit onto a standard electrical box, via a bracket that mounts to the box and supports the fixture. When you buy your new fixture, make sure it's at least as big at the base as the old fixture, so you don't have to touch up the paint around it.
A projector lamp lights the images projected onto a screen or wall. However, once the hour meter reaches its factory-designated limit in usage, the lamp needs to be replaced. Once you've replaced the light bulb of your projector, use its menu buttons to reset the hour counter on the meter so you'll know when to replace the lamp again.
Depending on the style of your lamp, the switch may be hard to reach. Most lamp switches require you to reach underneath the shade. The switch can be stiff, awkwardly placed, and next to the hot bulb. With a few basic tools and an aftermarket lamp switch, you can easily install a switch at any point on the lamp cord to make turning the lamp on and off easier. The project can be completed in around 15 minutes.
Fiberglass lamp shades were particularly popular in the 1950s. The sides of the lamps were often bright colors with mid-century modern designs such as kidney-shaped lines. The edges of the lamps were laced to the frame with lanyard in complementary colors creating a faux mica look that was both a little bit rustic and a little bit space age. Replicate this look in the color you want for your own '50s-style lamps.
Infrared heat is more energy efficient and less costly compared to conventional heating. Also, unlike conventional heating methods that use convection for heat to travel, infrared utilizes electromagnetic waves, which means heating occurs significantly faster. Some uses of infrared heating include home heating, reducing pain in sore muscles and keeping baby chickens and other small animals warm.
Make a DIY growlight bookcase to get a head start on garden season. Locate your growlight bookcase in any part of your home that doesn't get too cold. Basements are a good choice, because starting seeds can be dirty and wet. Outfit your growlight bookcase with heating pads specially designed to aid germination and with automatic timers for your electrical elements to ensure that plants get enough light and heat each day. Then enjoy watching your seeds sprout in the middle of winter.
Have a favorite lamp but don't have an outlet to put it in? This doesn't need to be a problem. Using some common household tools, a lamp's outlet wire can be removed and replaced with a rechargeable battery. By attaching a battery to your lamp, you will be able to illuminate any room that you choose without experiencing any loss in your lamps lighting quality.
An old lamp base may have potential as an accent piece in your home or office, but may lack an appropriate shade to enhance your decor. A new shade made from wood veneer may be just the subtle touch needed to bring warmth and life into your space. Veneers are thin sheets of real wood, available in many wood types and colors. Finding the appropriate veneer to complement your room is as easy as determining what wood finishes you have on your existing furniture. Any store dealing with wood products will have an associate who can identify your wood and…
Swag lamps get their names from the dangling, "swagged" cord that supplies power to the hanging lamps. Swag lamps allow you to bring light to your room without sacrificing floor or table space like you would with another lamp type. This lamp type also allows you to avoid messing with wires in your ceiling, since swag lamps have plug-in cords and you hang them on anchored ceiling hooks. Build your own swag lamp to create a custom, inexpensive light fixture for your home.
Constructing your own wooden lamppost from a single piece of wood requires specialized tools. Unless you have a large drill press and long bits, accurately boring a hole down the center of a post is a job best left to the experts. Fortunately, it is easy to fabricate a functional, durable and attractive lamppost by joining two boards and filling the grooves between them so the lamppost appears to be made from a single piece of wood. Cut a lengthwise channel into one of the planks before joining them to create space for the lamp's electrical wires.
Modern dimmer switches are variable resistors that pulse the electricity that passes through the light bulb. The more pulses per second, the brighter the perceived illumination will be. The number of pulses is typically manipulated either by rotating a knob or sliding a bar on the dimmer switch. The simplest lamp dimmer switches to install are called socket dimmers. The socket dimmer can be installed in minutes, without tools or advanced electrical knowledge.
Business and home theater projectors all use a high-powered lamp to illuminate and project the image onto the screen. The lamps have a limited lifespan, measured in usage hours. A typical projector lamp will last around 3,000 hours before it needs to be replaced. If you run your projector all day, you'll hit that number fairly quickly. Luckily, most projectors are designed so the user can replace the lamp himself.
Classic old canning jars are beautiful to look at but can get in the way if they're just sitting on a counter. By converting the jar into a lamp, you can still admire it while giving it a practical function. You don't have to go out and buy fancy drilling tools, since the parts are now available to make your own lamp with just a jar. A homemade jar lamp would make a thoughtful Christmas gift.
Changing your dull lamp shade cover into something more attractive doesn't have to involve an expensive trip to the furniture shop. Visit the craft store instead and make your own lamp shade cover at home. This economical alternative lets you express your creativity. You can also choose from a large variety of materials and patterns that your local furniture shop might not carry.
If you want to update your light fixtures, drum lampshades offer a sleek, modern look to older lamps for very little money. Choose a cool, modern print or a vintage pattern. The geometric, cylindrical shape of your drum lampshade will make even older prints look fresh and new. Plus, these shades are much easier to make at home than the traditional tapered shades. You can even make use of leftover fabric or wallpaper scraps from other projects.
Homeowners often like to refresh old items to make them new. However, new doesn't always mean they look new. Some refreshed items can look quite old, or vintage. Vintage décor adds a cozy feel to your home while still giving it a fresh look. One place to start repurposing old items is with your lamps. Everyone owns lamps, but some of them are very dated. Instead of trying to make these dated lamps look modern, take them backwards even further into a more stylish era. You can antique a lamp in a matter of hours with the right tools.
You've purchased a new plastic pendant lamp only to discover that the plastic shade or other plastic component is not quite right. Don't take back your new lamp yet. Your plastic pendant lamp may be salvageable if your issue is with the lamp's size or shape. Change the size or shape of your plastic pendant lamp or even add some custom decorative cutouts using one or both of two plastic cutting methods.
Infrared lamps or heat lamps are used for many applications, including heated porches, aquariums and saunas. One of the most popular uses for infrared lamps is for maintaining temperature in environments for livestock production. Chicks, for instance, require a specific body temperature to grow well and healthy. You can make your own lamp at home with a few basic tools. For a safe fixture, start with a simple UL-listed clamp light.
If your lamp switch strips or does not turn on, you may wish to repair your lamp. You do not need to replace your lamp simply because the switch has malfunctioned. Purchase a new lamp cord and new lamp socket complete with a new switch at your home improvement or lighting store. Lamp sockets come in a variety of colors, including copper and silver. Repairing a lamp does not require an electrician's license.
If you can’t find a lamp that you like in a store, make your own. It is not as difficult as you would imagine to craft a modern lamp using inexpensive household materials. The method we prefer uses plain white glue to stiffen yarn into a solid orb that serves as a lampshade. Using a balloon as a mold for the yarn structure allows you to easily remove the balloon by popping it after the yarn dries. The materials are so inexpensive that you can experiment with different sizes and shapes and different yarns to create your own matching set…
A pendant lamp is a lamp that hangs from the ceiling and has a shade of some sort covering the bulb. They are useful because they illuminate a wide area without taking up the space a floor or table lamp would. If you find a great pendant lamp, but don’t like the look of the shade, you can easily modify it to whatever look you want. Choose a fun fabric that matches your house and add a beautiful ribbon to tie it all together.
Wall lamps connect into the existing wiring circuitry of your home more easily than you might think. Most modern kits come with mounting brackets, which are designed to fit onto an existing wall electrical box and then hold the fixture, so you don't have to try to fit the fixture itself to the box. Almost any existing wall fixture, such as an electric sconce, can be easily replaced with a new wall lamp, then controlled with the same wall switch.
To start plants from seeds, the use of a glow lamp is essential. Seedlings require 16 hours of light a day to prevent the tiny plants from become too leggy, and without sufficient leaves on their tiny stems. Starting seeds indoors with a grow light before the garden season begins is a great way to get a head start on planting. The tiny new plants are a delight for all to watch grow and tend to fascinate children.
Lighting elements with character are hard to come by; it seems like big-box department store lighting aisles are filled with the same few beige, white or black lamps. Finding something as unusual and whimsical as a dinosaur lamp is often even more of a challenge. Fortunately, DIY lampmaking is a relatively inexpensive, painless process that allows you to control every aspect of the lamp's final appearance.
Many people think that when a lamp switch breaks, you have to toss the lamp and buy a new one. This couldn't be further from the truth. Lamp switches are easy to repair and replace and make a great do-it-yourself project for the otherwise novice home handyman.
Using DIY ideas, you can breathe new life into an old lamp shade, or create your own from scratch. You can connect old photo slides to make a colorful shade that diffuses light beautifully. Use wood veneer and scrapbooking paper cutters for a unique shade design. And don't give Grandma's lace tablecloth to Goodwill: sew it into a lamp shade instead.
Lighting is one of the important elements of good interior design. Any good home layout or design will include an adequate amount of lighting in order to truly define the space. Accent lighting, such as lamps, can be placed in various locations to enhance details, provide lighting for projects or reading, or to create a mood. Many believe that a good or bad lamp can make or break a good interior design plan.
