Girl Gets Electric (A Simple DIY Pendant Fixture)

Dottir & Sonur’s online shop melts me to the core. I discovered its first line of home decor via Decor8, and quickly became infatuated with the products. Lots of origami happiness, and vibrant colors too. Their pendant creation “Lightlace” has a charming, clean-lined design, and a lightweight appearance that wouldn’t overpower any space (and it’s a style I see more and more, most recently at Land of Nod with the Charm Pendant. It’s something that landed itself on my pinterest boards, where I gawked at it a lot, and then brainstormed ways to run new electrical wire into my bathroom because the image proves it it all: Lightlace looks downright phenom against subway tile.

Cuteness aside, the original design runs a little out of my price range. Adorned with sweet colorful beads, it’s priced at €139.00, which I’m pretty sure exchanges to about $215 USD before shipping. And the only USA vendor is out of Mississippi, a state that I’ve never toured through (at Amelia, for anyone more local to the Oxford, MS area), so the odds of me coming across it on any upcoming trips and burying it in my suitcase are slim-ish.

So I decided to pull inspiration from their design, and make something suited for my own home. The inspired piece required a little customization and reinterpretation for my space and style, and I kept the main materials simple:

• A 15′ outdoor extension cord (I chose white, $9)
• A porcelain socket adapter kit ($6)
• A bag of wooden beads ($3.50 thanks to a 40% JoAnn’s coupon)
• Light bulb (I already owned a West Elm Edison Bulb that I purchased awhile ago but never used, it ran me about $15)
• A plug-in switch to operate the light on/off without having to plug and unplug the cord (obviously optional, I had one in my electrical stash)
• Swag hook (free for me, I actually believe that I removed it from the living room not long after I moved in)

To start pendant development, I eliminated the female end of the extension cord with a quick snip-snip of the wire cutters.

This exposed the three wires the encasement was securing: the two electrical wires that correlate back to the tines on the male end of the cord (the uncut end that plugs into the wall), and the green grounding wire. With a razor blade, I scored and removed the white encasement, exposing about 1″ of each of the three wires.

The green ground wasn’t necessary since it didn’t have a place in the socket, so I cut it low with the wire cutters, while the white and black cords were dissected free with a wire stripper.

Before I attached the socket and wire together, I did two things: spray painted the exterior of the socket a soft matte white (it was an unfinished porcelain straight out of the packaging), and threaded wooden beads over the exposed wires (18 beads to be exact, about 1/2 of the package so that it wasn’t bead-heavy).

Unlike the inspirational Lightlace, I decided to keep the beads natural wood so as not to not overpowering the corner of the living room; there’s a lot going on in there already when you factor in the  orange color block mantle art, rainbow bookshelf, and multicolored ottomans. Also unlike the photo displayed on Dottir & Sonur, I decided to hang the pendant straight down from the ceiling instead of draping the beads gently; the ceiling in the living room, at 10′, seemed too tall, and the wire wasn’t quite long enough to allow the pendant to hang as low and looped as I envisioned it to (just about 1′ short).

Improvising, I hung it simply on a swag hook from the ceiling after measuring and planning its placement. The 15′ extension cord was just enough to allow the plug end to drape back down to the wall and to the outlet.

I also added a white hook to the edge of the wall to capture the cord and redirect it smoothly down to the plug. You can barely see that second hook, even in person, and it makes the cord just a little less obnoxious and more organized. Benefit? I can move that pendant up as far as I want, and down another 10″ if I want. Real life lighting wiggle room. (Truth: I usually opt for hardwiring everywhere, every time, this is new territory for me).

Replacing one of the driftwood lamps with this drop down pendant really brightened up this little nook that’s otherwise filled with books, art, a dozen maps that are rolled and tucked into the corner, and my yes-it’s-still-installed-and-strong trial floating shelf.

Up close, prettiness.

From another angle, you can see the cord clear as day, which yes, does annoy me, but with the summer months nearing, a new curtain will be installed, and during the day when the sunroom door is exposed, it’ll be pulled into the corner, concealing the white cord in the process.

And one more, at night, for fun:

P.S. Pete whipped up fixes for two big issues in our home over the last week: Repairing our oh-so-squeaky hardwood floors, and clearing a mortar-clogged drain. Check both posts out on dadand.com!