Like cheap Ikea Magnarp floor lamps? This instructable will show you how to put them on your ceiling. It's fairly easy but you'll be working with mains electricity, so if you aren't confident in your ability to do basic wiring, find a friend that is to help you.

Supplies

2 x Ikea Magnarp Floor Lamps

1 meter of lamp wire suitable for mains electricity

wire nuts or other wiring connectors

4 threaded hooks, thin picture frame cable with ferrules for mounting on the ceiling

Step 1: Assemble Your Magnarps Without Using the Bases

Locate the bottom-most poles of each of your magnarp lamps and drill holes in them that are large enough to run wire through. If the drill leaves the holes sharp, file them down a bit to be sure that they will not cut into your wire insulation.

Lay out the lamps in the approximate position they will be hung up, with the two bottoms of the lamp poles closest to one another. For our purposes, the "far" magnarp lamp is the one farthest from the source of electricity, and the "close" lamp is the one that will be wired into power from your ceiling.

Assemble the poles and shades of the far lamp according to the instructions, except with all the light sockets projecting what will be "downward," toward the floor, from the pole.

For the close lamp, we will reverse the normal vertical order of the lamp sockets in the pole as shown in the Ikea instructions. Place the lamp sockets such that what would normally be the topmost socket on the floor lamp is closest to the bottom pole (and the other lamp), and what would be the bottom lamp socket is at the top of the pole. All light sockets should face downward.

Set the heavy bases aside to use for another project someday.

Step 2: Wire the Two Lamps Together

Lay out the lamps such that the two bottoms are closest to one another, below the ceiling where they will be mounted. On the far lamp, cut the wire between the bottom-most light socket and the foot switch, and join it to your piece of lamp wire with wire nuts or other safe electrical junction. Thread the lamp wire through the hole you drilled in the base of the lamp, out of the bottom of the pole and into the bottom of the "Close" lamp pole, and up and out of the hole you drilled.

Now run the lamp wire a bit past the farthest lamp socket (what would normally be the bottom most socket). Cut the close lamp's wire between the footswitch and last socket, and splice a 3 way junction, connecting 1) the far lamp's wires, which runs through the bases to this junction, 2) the close lamp's wires, and 3) a piece of lamp wire you will eventually attach to your ceiling power supply when you mount this. Electrically, this should be ready to go.

Step 3: Add Mounting Wire and Mount to Your Ceiling

Make 4 pieces of cable with loops on either end using the ferrules to crimp them tightly together. Make them all of the same length, keeping in mind that their bottoms will be wrapped around the poles of your Magnarp lamps and threaded through the loops, and their tops will hang from hooks you have screwed into your ceiling. Thus they will determine how low your lamps hang down.

For each lamp, wrap a cable around the lamp pole about 1/4 the length from each of the ends, and use a sharp knife to make a small slit in the top of the lamp's paper just above them for them to come out. It's important that the slit is fairly short, as the pressure of the paper against the cable is what will keep the lamp from rotating. If you make the slit too big, you can easily repair it with masking tape if it hangs crooked once you attach it to the ceiling.

Now hang the lamps from the ceiling.

Turn off the breaker supplying power to the ceiling socket you will wire into, and check with a voltmeter to make sure it doesn't have power. (If you aren't confident you are being safe here, ask someone with experience wiring or call your local electrician.) Wire your lamp to power and test.