Monday, March 26, 2012

RePurpose: Mason Jar and Pie Plate Pendant Light DIY

I woke up this morning and went into the kitchen and immediately smiled.....I am not a morning person by any means but coming into the kitchen this morning brought a smile to my face. :)
Why you might ask?
This awesomeness that my husband did for me yesterday.

Seeing this vintage goodness light fixture that he made me just brought a huge smile to my face and made the morning happy.  I know it sounds silly but I have wanted one of these for awhile now and now that I have one I am super excited.  I love the vintage silver pie plate that he used up top too, I think it def. makes it more unique and gives the fixture more personality.  Totally my cup of tea and my kinda home decor. 

FYI I made have gone a little photo happy with these so if you want to know what he used to make this just scroll down. ;)


 This photo was taken last night ...right after he got it done I was so excited I just had to bust out the camera.


Photo totally does not do it justice, it looks so pretty all aglow. 


This morning :)


Semi close up so you can see the vintage pie plate better.  It has some beautiful detail work on it.


The sunlight hitting the blue jar is so pretty! I love it and the whole thing just makes the kitchen that much happier. :)

Update: If you look down in the comments section my husband posted a short tutorial on how he hung this fabulous light for me. :) 



Now I can't really do a tutorial on how to do this per say because I had no clue what he was doing. lol 
But I can give you some basic info in case you wanted to make one of your own. 

He used this kit


~~Important Note~~
When working over the sink always cover the drain holes so you don't loose a screw down your garbage disposal!!


Along with some threaded rods{2}, washers, wing nuts, and possibly some other stuff when he was in the attic doing the electrical work. 
 He took the base off the pie plate and used the hole in the middle for the electrical wire. I know that he attached some kind of bracket to the pie plate and then drilled two holes for the long threaded pieces to go through.  So the threaded pieces go through the pendant piece you get in the kit and through the pie plate and up through the ceiling into something {sorry about being so vague}. 
He cut out a hole in the lid of the mason jar for the fixture to go through.  Before attaching the light bulb he also drilled some holes in the top sides of the mason jar lid for air holes.  We are using an LED light but adding in the air holes prevents a vacuum ....or something lol Like I said, I really was lost while he was doing this.  I really should learn to be more handy....guess I should start paying attention more when he does projects like this huh? lol 

Sorry the tutorial is kinda vague...its not a tutorial per say just some basic...{and by basic I mean minimal lol} info on what he was doing.  Maybe one of these days I can get him to sit down and write what he did.  As for me, I am going to go and do some schooling with Victoria and enjoy the happy addition to my kitchen. :)

2 comments:

  1. I used the existing 6 inch hole left behind by the previous recessed lighting fixture. I also reused the ballast above the ceiling for support. I drilled out two holes into the ballast to run the rods down through. They were 1/4", 24" long all thread rods. I chose to use wing nuts simply because who really wants to wrench bolts onto a 24" threaded rod (washers are a good idea here as well)?! I attached the mounting bracket from the kit to the pie plate to guide the rods and make for easy drilling through the bracket holes. The lid of the mason jar was a bit messy as i just drilled several holes through it until my utility knife could cut the rest out. The fixture hides the uneven cuts anyhow, but we don't need to tell my wife that :P
    I ran the wire from the kit up through the middle of the plate as I ran the rods through, I secured it all with wing nuts on the room side and decorative "end" nuts on the exposed side of the light fixture. Once the fixture was secured I went back into the attic to pull up the excess rods and tighten up the fixture with additional wing nuts on the attic side. I ran the wire into the existing electrical box and twisted the wire together using your traditional wire nuts. Don't forget the ground wire!!! Once all was good the final inspection was to determine if air holes were needed in the lid. The light does get hot so I decided to vent the lid with two tiny holes. Hot air expands and an explosion was not on the "honey-do" list. After all was said and done, she was happy with it and that's what mattered!

    -The Husband

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