Sunday, March 17, 2013

Cantilever lamp & teenage daydreaming

A long time ago I read in one of those cheesy horoscope books and pored over the romantic matches that are best for my sun sign, Pisces.  This was in my late teens when I had all the time in the world and therefore spent it on astrology.  I think I needed something or someone (besides my parents) telling me that I was not going to be a gawky awkward person forever and find love.  Now I realize that a lot of those astrological personality descriptions can apply to many people - but one thing in particular still stands out in my mind.  Pisces (woman) and Taurus (man) are supposed to be a good match - one of the reasons being that a Taurus guy can materialize a Pisces's gal's ideas.

I have found this to be true especially during Mr. Z and my home furnishing endeavors.  There have been several ideas I've had that he made physically possible.  Most recently, this cantilever lamp...


We needed a light above our dining table but didn't want to bother with mounting a light on the ceiling and dealing with electrical issues.  Instead it's mounted on the wall, and the switch is the little aluminum box on the cord that turns the light on with the tap of a finger.  We also wanted the light to be moveable like a swinging articulating arm, and the cord fittings can be loosened to allow the light position to be adjusted up and down.







It took a while for this lamp to be finished because Mr. Z was waiting to use our friend Daniel's workshop (Autumn Workshop).  At one point Mr. Z shaved off the tip of his ring finger trying to cut one of the wood pieces for the wall mount!  The accident delayed the project even more, but luckily he still has all 10 fingers.  During the interim, the lamp went through a few shade revisions.  Since the cantilever and wall mount weren't done yet, we used a mic stand to prop up the frame and light.  At first we wrapped the frame with a black twill tape but found it to be too dark.  We decided paper would diffuse light the best, so I drafted a simple 2 piece triangle pattern out of plain paper and stapled it to the frame as a mock-up.  The final shade is made out of rice paper sewn together.  Sometimes you just need to live with something for a while to know what to do, you know?