When you purchase an older home, you inherit many dated interiors and fixtures, especially light fixtures. In my kitchen dining area, I inherited a beautiful red stained glass light fixture that is unfortunately falling apart. In its place, I plan to install a DIY industrial-style light fixture.
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The original red-stained glass fixture was falling apart.
The lead was pulling apart from the top of the fixture from the weight of the glass panels, and I was afraid we would crash one day soon. I personally really like the fixture, but my husband didn’t and always complained that it was hanging too low for him—he is well over six feet, so that is a common problem for us.
Since I didn’t know how to repair this fixture and he wanted a different look, I went shopping online for a cleaner, retro, and industrial fixture for our breakfast area. I kept returning to the clean lines of this fixture, I found on Shades of Light called the Loft Pendant.
We plan to add more stainless steel fixtures and details to our kitchen area in the future, so this fixture fits the look we plan for our kitchen area. I printed a copy of this fixture for a discussion with my husband and to put it on our future shopping list. He thought it was the perfect new look for the retro mid-century breakfast area we both want, and I told him I would purchase it online very soon. Well, there is a good thing I waited to buy it because I already had a similar fixture in storage that I had completely forgotten about!
I had previously brought home a white industrial-style light fixture from a thrift store for my daughter’s room. Trying to encourage her to make her room her own, I allowed her to paint it or decorate it any way she chose.
Then we delayed installing it for some reason, and she didn’t like it anymore.
At the time, she had painted it yellow and stenciled a message on it. She had fun painting it, but then she decided she didn’t want it in her room after all.
Recently, I pulled it out of storage and figured I could remake it—again—in a more industrial style for my kitchen dining area.
DIY Industrial Light Fixture
She had used acrylic paints, so I tried an old trick I learned of using fingernail polish remover to remove acrylic paints. The paint came off without any problems!
After cleaning it up and letting it dry, I used my favorite silver spray paint, Rust-Oleum in Satin Metallics Aluminum to repaint the white metal finish hiding underneath all that nasty paint.
I loved the new look immediately!
My husband used the existing hardware from the stained glass fixture to hang the new retro industrial-style light fixture in its place (not to mention that the ceiling is 17 feet in that area, so it was smarter to use the existing chain and canopy already installed).
So here is my new, and very inexpensive, light fixture hanging a little bit higher than before in place:
You are the source of all life, and because of your light we see the light. (Psalm 36:9)
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