Make a custom wall lamp out of scraps

The Goal: Use as few new items as possible to make a new light fixture.

Materials:
Scrounged bathroom light fixture
Scrap metal sheeting
I used the top of the 55 gallon drum I had cut off to make the
biodiesel oil prefiltration tank, or any other relatively flat
piece of scrap metal.
Scrap wood for the tree trunk - the extra from the nursery's floor was perfect.
Oxyacetylene torch or plasma cutter, a jigsaw or tin snips should work for for thinner metals.
Jigsaw to cut the trunk shape.
Random screws and fixture hardware

Time spent was a few hours and total cost was less than $15 for an adapter plate for the fixture and screws! (OK, so I did end up getting some second hand welding equipment for the project, but it was a great excuse to get some tools!)

The Project:
The switched light in the nursery was a simple globe wall fixture. It didn't distribute the light well and didn't fit the other decor, so I set off to figure out another lighting option. The spare cork from the floor gave me the tree idea, and I was initially planning on a more elaborate wall-mounted light with movable fruit lamps and some sort of bushy tree from which they hung. On further inspection, the electrical box for the fixture was somewhat loose and wouldn't easily hold the weight of the 4-bulb gooseneck floor lamp I was going to hack up for the project, so I thought of this lighter weight alternative that ended up looking way better than my initial concept.

The great part is, the concept could be applied in many ways such as a rocket ship, a planet, a guitar, star? Whatever you can trace out!

Step 1 Choose your lamp shape

This can be any shape that you'd like to cut, and the tree concept matched our forest themed eco-friendly nursery. Just make sure that you can drill holes in the right spots for the fixture bolts and that your design covers all of the bulbs in your fixture with as much overlap as you want.

Comments

[spylock]

Thats really nice,good job,and congrats on getting some welding equip.you can never have to many tools.

[Davetech]

That's really very nice looking! I'm going to have to make one of those. Thanks for that!

[atombomb1945]

I take it congratulations are soon to be in order?

[theseep]

Indeed! I'm trying to document our attempts at an ecofriendly nursery and baby on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.tinyurl.com/dbzabr">Orion's Sustainable Baby Blog</a>.<br/>

[gmjhowe]

That final result is epic! A great project that will be admired for years to come.

[theseep]

Thanks! The real final result will be coming in July. ;)

[gmjhowe]

Can't wait!