Having moved to the land girt by sea last January and set myself up on the Central Coast I felt the new extension I built needed something special.

Inspiration hit me at the beach, literally. A guy came out of the water with a bust surfboard with the light shining through a hole in it; so I should have been looking where I was going But that was the moment – I was going to hang a surfboard from the ceiling!

Step 1: Getting the Board

Gumtree.com sorted me with a $20 board, ancient and repainted many times. Some fine sandpaper revealed an awesome board underneath albeit somewhat bashed. I liked the Approach logo so decided to keep it in the final design.

Step 2: The Main Lights

I decided on two downlighters on gimbles for directional light. Picked them up at Bunnings for $11 each, grabbed some electrical blocks, 3 core cable, and ceiling rose attachment. An 86mm corer made short work of the board and we were almost in business!

Step 3: The Artwork

I used the water based wall paint that we used on the walls to put a base design on, detailed it up in black and polished it off with a clear acrylic to seal it and give it a “wet” look.

Step 4: The Finishing Touch

As a finishing touch I visited jaycar and got a strip of blue LEDs and a transformer – bit of schoolboy soldering and I have a cool blue ocean reflecting above the board.

(Do you think I could sell them?)