Tying in Lersta

Materials: Ikea-Lersta Reading/floor lamp, lamp shade, spray paint, Rayon Crepe Cord

Description: We moved a year ago into our new house. This was the perfect opportunity to create a new style for our living room.

Coming form Germany and moving to the UK, I wanted to have a Mixture of British and German elements.

I opted for red wall paint,red velvet curtains, red footstools.....you get the picture.

After all the redecorating, my old floor-lamp in my reading-corner did not fit in any more.

Lamp, before

Being a stingy German, I did not wanted to throw the lamp away and buy a new one.

So I decided to make it fit:
I bought a red lamp shade, a 200ml can of black spray paint and 4 metres of 4mm thick golden Rayon Crepe Cord.

First I removed the Aluminium Shade.

Then I bent the flexible part of the lamp into the desired form and fixed it with some yarn.

I masked off the thread and the cord and sprayed the whole base black.

As soon as the paint completely dried, I removed the masking tape.
Then I covered the yarn with the golden Rayon Crepe Cord. I left the ends of the cord long and added a second part of cord, so I had four long cord ends hanging down.

I cut each end a different length and made a knot in each aprox 7 cm from the end. Than I frayed the ends to gain some kind of tassels.

Finally I fixed the new lamp-shade onto the base, and.....TADA: the clinical looking old Lersta is now perfectly tied (pun intended) into our new living room decor.

~ Gregor Dobschutz, London, UK