Category: DIY

A number of fun and easy lighting-related do-it-yourself projects for your home.

“Blow Me Up” Lighting Fixture

Chris Johnson

Blow Me Up Light Created by Ingo Maurer and Theo Möller

The Blow Me Up lamp by Ingo Maurer  is an innovative LED lighting fixture that arrives rolled up in a can.  Who would have thought?

Easy To Use

Once it is blown up you can lean it against the wall or fastened it to the ceiling or wall with hooks or cords. They are easier to transport than fluorescent bulbs and there’s no danger of falling glass shards if bumped.  Also, there’s no drilling required.  Yes, it’s that easy.

Blow Me Up is a lamp that provides a variety of options.  Perfect for those who embrace mobility. There is a integrated sensor switch on one side of the LED strip, which radiates the reflective side of the tube, thus scattering indirect light in the room.

Not A Laser Sword

“With a suitable adapter Blow Me Up can also be connected to the 12 volts supply of a camping van.  The plastic hose, however, should be treated more carefully than camping equipment because above all it is neither a swimming noodle nor a laser sword.? -Ingo Maurer & Team

So there you have it, an LED lighting fixture that is easy to assemble, is mobile, and easy to clean.  The fantastic lighting it provides is great too.  Get yours today here.

DIY edison bulb light fixture over a rustic dining room table

How to Build a Rustic Edison Bulb Light Fixture

Guest Post 1 Comment

How to build a DIY Edison bulb light fixtureBy Guest Blogger, Brooke Beach

Any homemaker knows that the right light fixture can change the entire feel of a room. But light fixtures can also be very costly, especially when you are looking at custom sizing and design.

So why not make one yourself? We will walk you through, step by step, how you can create a professional-looking chandelier from scratch. The best part is that it is inexpensive and you can customize it to fit your exact size needs and style.

It’s simple – you’ll just need a few materials to get started:

Materials:

This project starts just as any quality project should…. the right materials.

  1. A piece of lumber: This specific piece of lumber was a new piece of 1×6 pine that I distressed and stained to give it a rough/distressed look. You can really use any style of wood that you like, the key is to make sure that it can accommodate the size of whatever baskets you choose.
  2. Baskets: I found the two square baskets on the outside of this fixture at the Container store and the center egg basket at Garden Ridge. Again, this is completely up to you as to the style of basket you choose.
  3. Light Sockets: I used light sockets that I found in the lamp accessory section of my local home improvement store. You will need one light socket for each bulb.
  4. Wire: I used brown lamp fixture wire for this fixture. This can also be found at your local home improvement store. Tell the associate that you are making a lamp and they will point you in the right direction. Typically they have white, brown and black colored wire in this gauge.
  5. Rope: I used ⅜ inch Sisal Rope for this fixture. Admittedly, not this best feeling rope that you could ever hope to handle, but it looks great and is certainly strong enough to support the fixture.
  6. 60 watt antique light bulb
    Antique Light Bulb

    Pulley: This is not necessary, but I really like how this finished off the piece. You can do a quick Google search for “Antique Wooden Pulley” and you will be pleasantly surprised by how many options you have!

  7. Edison Bulbs: This is easily the most important part of the fixture! The wire filament inside the bulbs show off a very cool design and the bulbs emit a warm, inviting glow. (For the first time ever, long-lasting and energy-saving LED antique filament bulbs are available!)
  8. Chandelier Canopy Kit: This is the part that will actually attach to your ceiling and cover the wiring. While you are picking up your wire and light sockets, grab this kit as well.
For the first time ever, long-lasting LED antique filament bulbs are available!)

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Weekend Warrior Recessed Lighting Project, Part Two

Weekend Warrior Series: LED Retrofit Lighting, Part Two

Chris Johnson 4 Comments

During the course of May, our team celebrated National Home Remodeling month by doing some simple lighting projects around the house and sharing them with our readers. We called it our “Weekend Warrior” series because all of the projects can be completed in a weekend (or less!). 

 

Weekend Warrior Retrofit LED Lighting Project

Project Two – The 1-Hour Project

In my last post I shared how we installed recessed lighting in our bonus room. Once I installed the LED retrofits there, I was hooked on the quality and energy-efficiency of the lighting. I decided to change out our seven 75-watt PAR30 halogen recessed lights in our kitchen with seven LED retrofit modules. The 7 halogen recessed lights used 525 total watts of electricity. By switching to LED retrofit modules I would reduce that wattage use to 87.5 watts! HUGE energy savings! In addition to the LED retrofit modules, I also changed out my dimmer switch to a Lutron Maestro C-L dimmer.

This was one project I was able to very easily do myself. In fact, I finished this one in less than an hour. Read More

Weekend Warrior LED Recessed Lighting Project

Weekend Warrior Series: LED Retrofit Lighting, Part One

Chris Johnson 1 Comment

This is the fourth post in our Weekend Warrior blog post series, part of our quest to bring customers unique products and creative ideas for DIY lighting projects around the house. We previously covered how to install security lighting, a custom pantry lighting solution, and creating a kid’s book nook with a wall mounted reading light.

Weekend Warrior LED Recessed Lighting Project

Since moving into my home in 2009 I have completed a number of lighting projects. In fact, I started a New Home Project blog post series documenting them. I am happy to report that a couple of those posts helped others with their own under cabinet and over cabinet lighting projects.

It has been a couple of years, but recently I embarked on two new projects with one overriding theme — Saving money by adding and/or replacing existing lights with LED. The first project that I’d like to share is adding LED recessed lighting to our bonus room to add more general illumination to this room, and the second one switched out our halogen recessed lights to LED. In both projects I installed 6-inch LED retrofits.

Project One – The Weekend Project

My bonus room’s general illumination came only from the lighting on our ceiling fan. For the size of our bonus room this was woefully inadequate. So, jump forward 6 years and we are finally getting around to painting this room and making it more than a “holding area” for random stuff. We decided it was a good time to increase the light level in this room with four LED recessed lights in the 4 corners of the room.

Bonus room with overhead light
Before we installed recessed lighting in our bonus room, our ceiling fan was the only light in the room.

When our house was built in 2009 I used PAR30 halogen light bulbs in our recessed lighting. At the time LED recessed lighting was still a little pricey and there were not many options. Now times have changed. LED recessed lighting, specifically LED retrofits, have come down in price and there a number of options available. Read More

Using a reading light in a kid's book nook

Weekend Warrior Series: A Kid’s Cozy Book Nook

Renee Carlson

This is the latest project in the Weekend Warrior blog post series, part of our quest to bring our customers unique products and offer creative ideas for DIY lighting projects around the house. 

How to create a kid's cozy book nook with reading light

For my Weekend Warrior project, I took a boring, ho-hum playroom corner and created a cozy and private reading area for my 9-year-old son, Max.

Here’s the deal:

I think every kid needs a place to call his own. A place to curl up and read an adventure novel on a rainy day, or just a place to escape pesky brothers. A book nook.

After lots of intense discussion, Max and I decided that his book nook needed a few crucial ingredients to make it the coolest-place-ever:

  • A small, cozy area with a comfy place to sit
  • Tons of interesting books with lots of super-hero action
  • A plug-in nearby for charging his Kindle
  • A reading light so he can read under his many future sheet-forts
  • Some pictures or posters to hang on the wall

Now:

We’ve already got most of the necessary ingredients for the perfect reading nook: a bookshelf full of interesting books, a cozy corner in the sitting area off of his bedroom, and an overstuffed bean bag. All we lacked was a reading light and some wall art.

A Cozy Corner, Before the Book Nook
Corners and closets are prime real estate for a cozy book nook.

How I chose the best reading light for our nook:

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Weekend Warrior | Pantry Lighting Project

Weekend Warrior: Installing a Battery Operated LED Pantry Light

Renee Carlson 3 Comments

When Pegasus Lighting’s President Chris Johnson heard that his neighbor Greg had installed such a unique solution to his dark pantry problem, he knew it was perfect for our Weekend Warrior blog post series. The Weekend Warrior series is part of our quest to bring our customers unique products and offer creative ideas for DIY lighting projects around the house.  

Weekend Warrior blog series | Pantry LIghting

Written by guest blogger Greg Prospero

For years my family has struggled to deal with an unlit kitchen pantry. It was dark and deep leaving its contents shrouded in spooky mystery. You might reach in for a box of Oreo cookies and come out with a bag of dried organic snap peas. To avoid these frustrating mix-ups we resorted to using our iPhone flashlights or a small battery powered LED puck light – neither of which delivered satisfactory illumination of the pantry contents.

This DIY will explain how you can bathe your entire pantry in bright and uniform LED light whenever you open the door. The build is simple and low cost. There are only a few parts and the lighting is powered by 8 AA batteries that should power your lights for more than 15 hours.

Weekend Warrior Pantry lighting project | Before and After Read More