Light up my life - Master Closet Light on a Budget

Work has officially started on my one major household annoyance...my master walk-in closet. By walk-in, I mean a closet that I can step into and turn around. It is not grand by any means, but it is bigger than I have had in the past.

I have dreamed about having beautiful built-ins though out the closet along with hanging a lovely chandelier from the ceiling. Until I, out of curiosity, priced how much it would cost for us to install the built-ins; I mean with us doing the work and buying them from a big box hardware store. Well that bubble of a dream was popped really quickly. Then I realized the idea of a chandelier hanging from our ceiling, where the is no room to get around and in a room where we get dressed (hence lifting our hands above our heads on a daily basis), wasn't really practical either.

Well my beauty desiring subconscious has been beat up and kicked to the curb by its evil nemesis, my practical subconscious.   So my plans for my walk-in have changed and gone to the dark side, practical!

The first thing I have finished in our walk-in closet is replacing the horrible light. When we moved in we had, what I called, upside down mushrooms in almost every room. Here is one for you to admire:

Nice huh!

I had Pinned a few ideas that I thought would be beautiful since I can't do a chandelier. These two images were my inspiration:
Embarcadero Mount sells for the extremely reasonable price of $278! It is nice isn't it but come on $278!?

Source Amazon

Then there was the Lithonia Lighting Linon Black Bronze Flush for the more acceptable price of $100.

Source Amazon

I loved the brown/black trim, the linen and woven texture of the fabric and the metal medallion in the bottom. However, I still could not justify $100 for my small, not grand walk-in closet. Who really could?

So one day when my husband and I were at Ikea picking up something else for the walk-in (more on that tomorrow), I saw this ceiling light for $30. I have seen it before and walked right past it thinking nothing of it. It is a great size at 14 inches diameter and 6 inches deep.

Source Ikea - Alang Ceiling Light

Well this time I saw it, I knew there was huge potential! A little grosgrain ribbon, a wooden disk spray painted and you have a close duplicate of the much more expensive ceiling lights.

 Materials:

Alang ceiling light - Ikea ($30)

5/8 inch Brown Grosgrain ribbon

2 x 1/2 inch disk -  painted Brown

Method:

I had the grosgrain ribbon on hand so I do know what it cost (I think I bought it for around $3 at Michaels). It was 5/8 inches wide and 8 yards long. I did not use the entire package to do the ceiling light. This is what it looked like.

I melted the one edge of the ribbon to prevent fraying. Be careful when doing this. I always do it next to a sink in case I need to run it under water.

 Here is what it looks like after you carefully put a flame to the edge of it.

I fired up my fancy hot glue gun, and started gluing the ribbon at the seam on the light. I could have used permanent fabric glue, but I worried if it didn't work then I would be out $30. But of course since I am sharing this, it did work well. Once I got the entire way around, I overlapped the ribbon slightly. Be sure to melt the other end of the ribbon too.

I had initially thought I would only do the top of the light with the grosgrain ribbon like my first inspiration photo, but when it was done and installed, I really thought it needed a second band like the second inspiration photo. Here it is with only one band of ribbon.

 

So back to the hot glue gun I went. I glued another row of grosgrain ribbon around the bottom.

I then had my husband cut a small disc of wood off a dowel we had laying around. It was approximately 2 inches in diameter and we cut it about 1/2 an inch in depth. 

 

 I then spray painted it dark brown to match the ribbon.

We located the middle of the base of the ceiling light and put a small dot with pencil. I again hot glued the disk to base of the light.

 

That was it! 10 minutes of work (plus drying time for spray paint) and I have a new beautiful light. 

 

I tried to do one of those fancy slip shots with the before and after images with my inspirational photo (left) with my end result photo (right) but it didn't work very well. You get the idea though that I did a pretty good job at getting them to look similar.

What do you think? Not bad for $30 and 10 minutes of work. I think this is my favorite DIY light so far...and I have done many. Click here for all my other DIY lights.

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter tomorrow and if I can find a few minutes, I will share with you what we are working on today.

Stephanie.