What We're Making: Sconces from Leftover Pendant Lights

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about our half bath half remodel—which features a new pair of DIYed sconces. When we first started making plans for this bathroom, we thought we'd go with a more conventional over-mirror light.

And then we remembered the two leftover pendants we had from the kitchen remodel.

Which would cost us $0 to use in the bathroom.

We were sold.

But we didn't want to be matchy-matchy with the lights in the kitchen. That may be fine for couples who go to Disneyland together dressed in twin Hawaiian shirts, but not for us.

So I got the brainy idea to try to turn them into sconces kind of like these:

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Mr. W loves a good challenge, so he assessed the situation and decided we could run some sort of metal tubing from the base plate thingee (technical term) to the dome part. So off to Home Depot we went in search of the perfect metal tube. We found some copper pipes we thought would work and then, while wandering past one of the plumbing aisles, I found these perfect hollow rods with cute little finished capped ends.

Here's the thing no DIYer ever wants to admit: I have NO idea what the rods are for.

I looked through (literally) 30 pages of plumbing products on the Home Depot website and I can't find them. Could they be fancy float rods or toilet risers? No clue. (And I have no idea what either of those items are, either. Good thing we weren't actually searching for plumbing parts.)

Anyway, it doesn't matter. What matters is that they worked perfectly for our pendants-to-sconces project.

Mr. W rigged them all up and figured out the wiring. Then I tried to spray paint them glossy black...and failed. But Mr. W swooped in and gave them a sanding and tried again and now they're great. Why he has to be better than me at everything other than organizing closets, I'll never know.

I'm pretty darn happy with how the lights turned out.

Mr. W doesn't love them because he thinks they look DIYed, but I think they add just the right element of character to our "new" bathroom—like shiny black earrings dangling over the mirror. And anyway, perfection is overrated...