The standing lamp for our "new" living room is finished. We took all the pieces and, this afternoon, put them together. I made sure to document the process (beginning with an earlier post chronicling the part where I made the different pottery components). So, here it goes.

First, our list of supplies:
A standing lamp (which we disassembled by removing the electric cord)
Pottery pieces (enough to go to the height of the decorative piece below the actual fixture), including a "cap" piece).
2" PVC pipe
Foam spray (to "set" the PVC pipe against the metal pole of the lamp).
Silicone (to attach and anchor the separate pottery pieces to each other).
A replacement plug (since we had to remove the old one to remove the wire so we could put the whole thing together -- a long story).

We took the PVC pipe and loaded the pottery pieces onto it. I'd already checked the height of the pieces against the lamp and, being really, REALLY lucky, they were the perfect height.

At this stage, everything was just sitting one on the other, so we could make adjustments and figure things out. We decided to switch the order of the pottery a little, switching around the bottom piece with the blue piece (fourth from the bottom).

Then we marked the PVC pipe where it needed to be cut and took everything apart again.

Then Avie, my favorite husband and incredible handyman, took the PVC pipe outside to cut. He cut it 1/4" below our marked line.

Then we brought it back in and put it on the lamp. At the top, we sprayed in some insulating foam sealant so the PVC pipe would be fixed in place. We only needed to do this at the top, since the bottom sat squarely around a "hump" from the lamp base, holding that part quite nicely. Then we allowed the foam to set for a few minutes.

The wire you see sticking up through the center is the guide wire we were going to use to pull the original electric cord back down through the lamp. We had to do this because you can't drop pottery pieces down with everything attached. We didn't think about this until we started looking at everything after we purchased this lamp at the Salvation Army.

When the foam had set up a little, we began loading on the pottery, putting a line of silicone where they joined the PVC and each other, to keep them secure and to prevent them from shifting.

Finally, we had all the pieces loaded.

When the insulating foam dries, it also expands. Avie trimmed the foam so it wouldn't block the threads where we would be screwing the lamp back together.

Then it was time to pull the electrical cord back through. He threaded the guide wire through the cord and gently used it to guide everything back through the bottom two holes of the lamp. It worked like a charm except, in the excitement, we'd forgotten to put the pottery finishing cap on. So, the first time was for practice. We put everything back the way it was, put on the cap, and rewired the lamp a second time.

Then it was just a matter of attaching the cap piece, attaching the new plug, screwing in the top, and making sure everything worked.

It did!

 

 

All in all, it was a fabulous experience resulting in a tremendous sense of pride AND a fabulous piece for the formal living room.

Let me know what YOU think!