Friday, February 22, 2013

#581...birch log lamp

Our fireplace is not functional. There are some issues with our 1919 chimney that renders it unsafe for real fire. It would be an expensive venture to get the fireplace in operational order, and since we live in Houston and need a fireplace.....well, never.....it's just going to remain a decorative element in our bungalow. Over the holidays, I had some balls of  Christmas lights inside the fireplace and they gave nice effect to the empty fireplace. I wanted something more permanent that added light to the fireplace, so Tyler built a birch log lamp to sit inside it.
Instead of finding our own wood for the fireplace lamp, we cheated and bought these birch logs from Minnesota on etsy.
First, Tyler drilled three evenly spaced holes through one of the logs
Next he bought some lamp kits and supplies
He wired up three individual light sockets and then dropped the wires through the holes in the log. He wired the three socket wires together creating one lamp cord on the underside of the log.

We got some Edison bulbs from Amazon, and hid the lamp wiring under the logs and rocks. There is an extension cord that runs to a nearby wall outlet. We put the log lamp on a timer so that it comes on for a few hours each evening. I still need to better disguise the extension cord running out of the fireplace to the wall plug.

1 comment:

kl2069 said...

that looks really pretty!