Lamp Table

Had fun with this one... found a pair of industrial style hanging laps and connected them back-to-back to make a side-table.  Added some cables with turnbuckles to stabilize the connection, an antique style cord, and a nice toggle switch.  With colored bulbs inside, I think it turned out quite well.

Antique/Retro hanging wall-lamp

I recently did my first lamp repair for a customer in the neighborhood.  He had an old lamp he had picked up at a garage sale, but had a bunch of rust on it, and a totally worn out cord.  It's an antique hanging lamp, intended to be hung on the wall, with an adjustable cord and counter-weight.  Pretty cool design, and a great fit for his place, but it really needed an overhaul.

So, I removed most of the rust from the metal parts... polished the brass pipes and re-painted the off-white pieces and the counter weight.  I replaced the cord with a great antique-style rayon-wrapped cord.  It's not quite as thick as the original, but it will do the trick.  Ended up having to replace the switch as well, which involved a bunch of dismantling of the light-socket assembly, and some soldering to get it back together.  But it all works, and looks great!

Here are some pics of what it looked like before the repairs:

Cage Lamp with brass fixture

Created a new lamp last weekend, using an old rusty metal cage-like object from the wonderful folks at Walrus.  We think the cage was used for feeding chickens... you place it over the bowl of feed so that no one chicken can monopolize or sit on the food... they all have to stick their heads in through the cage, forming a nice neat circle.

Anyway, I reinforced the top of it with a modified brass light fixture cup, and added some brass pipe to bring the large antique/Edison-style light bulb down to the center of the cage.  Also added a chain and a beautiful cloth wrapped cord.  I think it turned out really well.  Let me know what you think in the comments.  And if you're interested in buying it, it'll be available at Walrus.

Soviet era military surveying tripod is now a lamp

We found this incredible old tripod and surveying instrument at an antiques sale.  Can't quite figure out what it is, since the only writing on it is a handful of Cyrillic characters which look like nothing more than a serial number.  After talking to a surveying expert, they think it's some sort of "nadir plummet", since the eyepiece looks straight at the ground with a cross hair.  

Anyway, as you can see, I turned it into a lamp by adding a vintage industrial lamp shade with a small flood lamp pointing down over the instrument.  The shade is attached with three aluminum legs,  carefully attached at existing screws, so as not to damage or permanently alter the tripod and instrument.

Vintage stained glass window as a room separator

We live in a loft-style space that's pretty much just one big room.  We love having the kitchen and living room completely open to eachother, with a giant wooden beam in the ceiling providing a great visual separator without being a physical barrier.  For the bedroom, on the other hand, we wanted a bit of actual separation, and since we also needed closet space, we installed a couple big wardrobe closets, which do a great job of separating the bedroom from the rest of the space.  But... there was a gap remaining between the bedroom and the living room.  In that gap we wanted a stained glass window, and we finally found one that we liked at the Alameda Antiques Fair.

It took a bit of cleaning and reinforcing of the frame to get it into shape, but then it mounted quite nicely in the space we had to fill... and it looks great lit up from either side.  

Brass Chandelier #0

This is my first serious brass lamp.  It's made from brass pipe, cluster bodies, hinges, and other machined brass parts.  The sockets are ceramic, with brass covers, and it all hangs on a rayon wrapped antique style cord.

This lamp hangs over the island in our kitchen, and really is one of the centerpieces of the room. It's best when the dimmer is down about half way, so that the bare-filament bulbs glow warmly and not too bright, but it still gives off useful light.  

This lamp was inspired by the work of Lindsey Adelman.

Cloth wall hangings

What to do with a whole bunch of African patterned cloth from west Africa and South America?  Hang it on your wall, of course?  To make it look great, we devised an easy way to frame each piece of cloth, and easily hang them on the wall.  It was a lot of fun designing the layout, and now it's a major element of our living room.

Inspired by the success of the African cloths, when this classic piece of fabric came along I couldn't resist making a big one.  It's probably from the 60's or 70's, and totally reminds me of my childhood.  Drop a comment below if you know what kind of cloth it is, or if you had it on something as a child.  

Antique Edision bulb pendant lamp

One of my first and simplest lamps... a single fancy bulb hanging from a retro rayon wrapped cord.  It looks great right over our mirror, where you get to see it twice!

At first it had just simple socket, so I had to plug it in to turn it on, but I managed to install a turn-key socket, while keeping the brass socket cover, so now it's super easy to use.

Copper coat hanger

We live in an old firehouse in Oakland.  It was built in the early 1900's, in the days when many places still used horse-draw fire trucks.  The place has changed a lot over the past century, and even though it's now surrounded by a nice fence and plants, you can still tell it's a firehouse by looking at the shape of the building, the main front doors, and the fact that along the front of the building, the whole curb is tapered down, not just where the current driveway is.

Anyway, when we moved in here, one of the first things we needed was a coat rack, so I took some copper water pipe, and made a long row of connected coat hooks.  It's attached to the wall with 5 screws and held together with glue and a few set screws... no need for soldering this one.  It's super useful and looks great by our front door.

Welcome to the Electric Firehouse!

Electric Firehouse is stepping out of the studio and onto the web!

Welcome to our site, where you can see the lamps, household fixtures and other items I've created, many from old or re-purposed materials.  Hope you like it, and do get in touch if you're interested in purchasing a piece, or discussing a custom design.