A new lamp for our weird corner

This corner in our living room is stupid. There's a rather, um, vintage built-in air conditioner on one wall. There's a big radiator on the floor against the other wall. Apparently it's so heavy that over time, it has caused the floor to slant downhill. Which means the floor lamp that used to stand here leaned like it belonged in a funhouse. I'm all for fun, but it was also the perfect height to block the breeze from the air conditioner.

So we went for a hanging light, the Fillsta from IKEA. It's supposed to be wired into the ceiling, but we needed to hang it without making a big hole up there. Sure enough—we made it happen using some high-end supplies: cardboard and binder clips.


We ignored the socket and cord gizmo that came in the lamp kit and used a stand-alone cord and socket that plugs into an outlet. We cut two cardboard circles out of the box the lamp came in. Then we poked a hole in the center of each and added a slit along the radius to fit the cord through. Rotating the bottom circle locked the cord in and we taped them together. We put a bulb in the socket and stuck it inside the shade, then clipped the cardboard circle to the plastic frame. At some point we might get totally crazy and replace the clips with more tape, but this seems to be working just fine.

And of course I couldn't stand the white cord against our mustard walls, so I painted it with leftover wall paint to help it disappear a little better. A couple of small, painted nails bent over the cord secure it to the corner. Kinda crude, but I don't care. I love this light.