Lighting

Well, it's been a frustrating couple of weekends.  Things got off to a good start with my little lamps on the desk and by the brown leather chair.  I painted the cord on the desk lamp brown (it was originally white) so that it wouldn't stand out as much and got that lamp in place.  I had to make a minor adjustment to the table lamp.  Originally, I had a piece of metal tubing at the top of the base.

However, there is a thick, coated bit between the bulb and the wires.  It was too big to fit within the metal tubing I had, so it sat up on top, causing the bulb to be higher than the lamp shade could accommodate.

So I removed the original metal tubing and instead made my own tube from a foil stove burner liner (a little heavier than aluminum foil).  My tube is big enough to fit around that coated part.  (I'm not explaining this well, I'm afraid.)  Anyway, the bulb now fits within the shade.  Yay!  Although the painted shade is a bit dark and doesn't let a lot of light through, I can assure you, it does work.

The cords for both lamps are in a groove between the floor and wall.

I had an idea for making my own lamp for the table by the flowered chair.

Problem one came with the base.  I cut the bottom part of it from wood, drilled a hole in the center, and cut a groove for the cord.  I wanted to cover it with some shiny metallic Duck tape I had, but it would not stick to the wood.  I even tried various glues, without success. 

I then tried some shiny origami paper and was able to get that to stick.  The next part of the base was going to be a stack of clear round beads.  Unfortunately, they did not want to stick together in a nice, straight line without also blocking the holes through which the wires needed to pass.  I tried a couple of sizes of beads, to no avail.  I truly spent two Saturday mornings and a few evenings working on this, trying various glues and techniques, before finally throwing in the towel.

I took the lamp I was originally going to use, which had a super shiny brass base, and painted it silver.  

The original shade had met with an accident and been crushed, so I made a new shade from velum paper.  It has not been glued on yet, because I still need to add the ruffles around the top and bottom.  I have ordered some fairy lace in various shades of gray that I'm hoping I can get into decent-looking ruffles.  I first tried tissue paper, which I thought I could sort of crumple into ruffles, and that was a resounding failure.  I have made ruffes from fairy lace in the past, though, so my fingers are crossed that that will work well enough this time.

 Now that the wires are in place, I have put in more baseboard, and will soon finish the doorway.

Still trying to track down the picture that goes under George Washington on the back wall.  Samantha (hi!) found a video from Sagamore Hill that almost shows the picture.  Actually, it does show it, but it's a little too blurry to identify.

The picture appears to be a man waving his hat, and possibly riding a horse or steer.  He also seems to have long hair.  I've tried searching for pictures of TR campaigning, TR as a rough rider, various generals that TR might have admired, and even Buffalo Bill Cody (who knew TR, had long hair and had rough riders in his Wild West show), without success.  I tried Google images, but it matched it to soft-focus images of black-and-white landscapes.  I've e-mailed the folks at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site twice to ask what it is, but they haven't responded. I'm guessing they think it's just a really odd request, and they're ignoring it.  *sigh* 

I am off next week (yay!), so should have more time to work on the library.  I have a few little projects planned.  😊