A Light Makeover

As hinted at in this post, I have a new Impatient Decorating project to share with you. A burlap cord cover for the chandelier in my dining nook!

My husband surprised me with this little chandelier for Christmas, to replace the gigantic frosted glass and shiny brass wart of a light fixture that was adorning the ceiling when we moved in. Now, I know, it's no french antique... It's actually Swedish! (cough, cough, Ikea.)  But it's amazing the difference it made!

Sorry... again, no "before" pictures. In looking through early pictures of the dining room, I noticed that I had purposefully framed all the shots so as NOT to include the ugly light fixture. Go figure. But it was one of these...

...only bigger, older, and dirtier. Yuck.

Much better :)

If you are renting something less than your dream house, know this: it is remarkably easy to change out an ugly light fixture, and absolutely worth it!  I had to reassure my husband that my utter shock and amazement at how fast he changed out the light had nothing to do with my doubting his handyman skills, and everything to do with my cluelessness about the world of electricity. It took less than 10 minutes!

But, as will all modern conveniences, it came with an ugly cord. I have seen burlap cord covers from places like Pottery Barn for around $20 that are made to neatly snap around the cord and stylishly hide it.

But aside from spending the money, ordering one involves lots of waiting. And one morning, I decided that I didn't want to wait anymore! I had a nice big piece of burlap on hand, so I had to decide how to make it work. I thought about velcro... but didn't have any. I though about stitching it... but that takes way too long. I even thought about hot glue... but that involved digging around for the hot glue gun, not to mention an extention cord. So what did I use?

Nothing! I ended up cutting the burlap into long strips about 6 inches wide, and just started wrapping it around the cord. I secured the end by tucking it into the chain and tightly wrapping the burlap a couple times around it. I would wrap a short section at a time, not paying too much mind to how it looked, and then go back and scrunch the section together to get a little more volume and tuck all the raw edges under. Wrap, scrunch, and tuck. Wrap, scrunch, and tuck. At the end, I just tucked the end under a fold and into a loop of the chain and it held just fine. Not a drop of glue or a stitch of thread in sight! And it looks just as good at the Pottery Barn ones, for a fraction of the cost.

If you want to try it at home, I do have a Tip of the Day for you:

If you have anything on your table, take it off before you start!

The burlap will shed hairy little strands all over the table, and in my haste to get started I neglected to remove the tray of garden pots, candles, and urns that I had on the table, so they were covered in burlap fuzz by the time I was done. How much easier it would have been to just sweep off an empty table. :)

But I am SO happy with the end results. Proof again that you can do great decorating projects with next to nothing!