Creative Salvage Lampshade

The story of this lampshade begins at my wedding, when we received two lamps as a wedding present. They had mustard silk lampshades with a cardboard lining, mounted on a wire structure. It was the wire that became the catalyst for this salvage project, because the old model from 1982 was of such design involving a wire circle to be mounted directly on the lightbulb and hang in balance by the force of gravity - definitely winging it on the technological aspect. Unfortunately that meant no chance of finding the same design nowadays. (We had loads of fun accidentally knocking those things over for the better part of the '80s, however.)

These lamps had a very long and happy life, as even though I was beginning to learn what consumer society was like, I still couldn't conceive of throwing anything away just because of its age (and much less because it had "gone out of style"). Until one day, while moving into the new apartment, the cardboard-lined lampshades got crinkled beyond recuperation. So I finally found it in my heart to replace them, and that's where the wire structure you see in these pictures originates. 

One of the replacements had another silk covering, tied in the upper part with a tasselled cord. This was the moment when the two lamps got divorced, on account of irreconcilable differences (in design). So one of them ended up in the living room as a floor lamp, and the other one remained in the bedroom with the function of "I switch it on so I can check the alarm clock" - for, dear readers, I do not read in bed. Correction: I do read in bed, and always fall asleep after two and a half pages.

For the other one (the "floor lamp") I had devised another solution: a light rattan lampshade from IKEA, which was not mounted on the lightbulb like in 1982, but luckily fit around the socket just fine. However, IKEA had only one of those in stock... and unfortunately when I get an idea in my head, there is no letting it go, and certainly no "checking later to see if the item is back in stock" (ugh!). Therefore the two lamps did not reconcile their paths, and the one in the bedroom enjoyed its classy tassel lampshade for many years. Right up until the renovation: the covering got full of construction dust, and into the laundry - which was a Very Bad Idea. As in a Tom & Jerry cartoon, the nicely sumptuous lampshade shrank to a percentage of its former self, and (quite unusually) I couldn't find any decent fabric to bail me out. I still love the disorganised pile labelled "Leave Them There, They Might Prove Useful Someday" though.

So I devised an ingenious plan: weave a new base from a ball of string, and add a new covering whenever I got around to it. But I do tend to get carried away... one more knot here, one more knot there, let me cover the old rusty wire, and so on. Until I began to see the project was heading in a more rustic direction, and that's when it all came together! 

I dug into the beloved pile again and emerged victoriously with an assortment of bits and pieces, such as: a piece of trim I had originally kept to decorate a cute little bag with (some 40 years ago!), leftover ribbon from a flower bouquet, and a piece of non-slip fabric that goes under carpets to prevent unexpected original choreographies taking place in the home. But don't for one moment think these were chosen at random! Oh no... They had to be of the right size, in order to fit around the lampshade, but not leave too many unused pieces, because those would once again end up in the bag labelled "Oh No Worries, I Will Figure Out What To Do With These Eventually." Riiight... Then, the colours had to match the bedroom design. 

And since simple things must not remain uncomplicated - I meant unfinished... I found some beads to apply as knot-stops to the base, in the bags labelled "Assorted Broken Things That Are Kept Because They Will One Day Be Mended For Sure." Now the big question is what to do with the rest of those beads I haven't used up... 

Footnote about the title: my daughter tells me the sculpture of the boy from the lamp's resin base is called an Atlas or Atlant, the male counterpart of a Caryatid. How cool is that? Someone gave me two Atlantes as a wedding present, and I didn't even know about it. Seems to be a running theme of this blog, eh.