DIY Metal Chandelier Light Shade

Hello! Hope you’re having a good week. I have a few posts in queue so that I could do less this summer and spend more time reading, playing and pool-ing… BUT I had to add this in because I’m so excited for how this project turned out! Before I get so excited that I forget; this post contains affiliate links. Thanks for making our sonic happy hour trips possible. : )

Do you see what’s different? Besides my yellowing asparagus fern…

I switched up the light fixture! And got an AWESOME rug. But that’s not new news if you follow me on Instagram.

So back to the story behind the totally impromptu chandelier update. Globe Electric sent me some new lighting products to try and one thing I picked were these cool, vintage looking light bulbs for the chandelier in here. I picked them with the intention of just removing the hoop shade that I made for our dining room a couple years ago. You can read that DIY here.

What I didn’t think about was the scale of the 9ish year old IKEA chandelier. With the shade removed, it all the sudden looked very shrimpy.

I didn’t get a real picture of the light so that you could see it’s size in the room but as a consolation prize, here’s an iPhone pic of the cool bulbs and my man’s shoes on the porch..

I loved the bulbs but was bummed with how the light looked. I browsed a few online stores and just didn’t want to pay a lot of money to replace a perfectly fine set up.

I got the idea to keep using the hoops and replace the fabric and realized we had this wire fencing stuff in the garage. About 47 seconds later I was ripping apart the old shade and starting to work.

I measured the length and width of the shade I would need and headed outside to cut the fencing. Ours didn’t have packaging anymore but I think this is something similar, here.

I made the shade about 10.5″ tall and after I got length I needed, 71″ to get around the hoop, I set it up to make sure it would fit.

Then I took the pointy ends of the wire and wrapped them around the other side of the fencing using needle nosed pliers.

I had some warm gold spray paint in the garage and took it outside for a new coat of paint.

I made sure to coat the outside and inside and flip it over so that none of the bare metal was showing.

Once that was dry, I brought it back in with the embroidery hoop and used some clamps to set it up how I wanted it.

First I tried gorilla super glue, then I tried hot glue and that’s what I ended up with.I’m sure the other would have worked if I was more patient but I’m not.

Hot glue and metal don’t always work well together but I put the hot glue on the wood and around the metal and that did the trick.

The only problem that I ran into was the top hoop was too large for the size circle I made. This was originally an embroidery hoop so the outside fits around the inside and tightens down around the fabric that’s in between. With the first shade, the one with fabric, the small difference in circumference wasn’t noticeable but with the metal, it was.

Instead of redoing the whole thing, I just used a handheld saw and took away some of the length at the clamped part so that the hoop could be made smaller. It worked! I felt like a genius for that fix.

So after dots of hot glue around the top and bottom hoops, it was ready to be reinstalled.

I had my handsome man hold it while I put a couple quarter round pieces over the arms of the chandelier and braced within the hoop. (this was the set up for the first shade as well.) These trim pieces, (quarter rounds because it’s what we had on hand) are what hold the shade up .

I readjusted them a bit to make sure the light was level and not all crooked looking.

I love it!  I love the warmth of the gold and how it goes so well with our brass and wood hardware.

This project took me half a day including dry time and taking the girls to the pool for a few hours.

Problem solved though! I get the scale of light I want in the room, but I can also still see those cool bulbs and all for FREE.  To me, it’s a little more modern than the fabric shade and I love the refresh the room got.

Scroll below to shop the room:

If you like the look of a drum light chandelier but don’t think you’re into the DIY / embroidery hoop thing, I’ve rounded up some lights you might like. Click on any light to open up its link.

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Thanks for reading, friends!

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