Building a Floor Lamp continued-finish photos

Hello Everyone,
I apologize for not getting this lamp sooner. I had to make an unexpected out of town trip and while I was out of town I injured one of my knees and haven't been able to walk well or do much in the way of woodworking. I have finished the floor lamp with help from my husband and I've also changed it significantly from the original pattern. Here's what I did:

When last we met I had finish making all of the parts for the lamp. While I was traveling I thought a lot about the base of the lamp and I decided to beef up the legs of the lamp with some 1" x 4" pine boards instead of the 2x2 inch pine that the plan calls for.

This is how the base would have looked like had I followed the plans:

Here are the pine boards I cut:

And I beveled the ends a little to make them look less, well, boardy:

Here is the lamp base with the feet attached. Doing this allowed me to use 2 screws to attach the feet to the lamp post instead of one screw. I'm only attaching 3 feet to the lamp post and you'll see why shortly:

The plans also said to purchase a lamp kit and this one I bought (I've never made a lamp before) is the wrong type of kit for this type of lamp:

Instead we purchased a hollow threaded brass rod, an electrical cord, and a light socket and several nuts and washers and used that for the bulb and lamp shade:

This is actually very simple to put together. The brass tubing is about 12 inches long and is attached to the wooden arm through a 3/8" hole I drilled into the end with a nut and a washer:

Next we threaded another washer and nut on the tubing then inserted the lamp shade: 

After that, we threaded the cord to the socket through the tubing and over the top of the arm and down the back of the lamp post. Eventually we stapled the cord down to the arm and post with heavy staples:

The last step involved screwing the socket to the end of the threaded rod and we were finished. We took it inside and plugged it in and it works:

And here is the lamp at present:

And here is the base. We didn't add the forth foot because our grandson, who is a rambunctious toddler came to visit for a while and we wanted to attach the lamp to our stair rails so he couldn't pull the lamp over:

I haven't stained the lamp base because I can barely stand up on my knee at this point but I will get around to it later on.

And that is that. It provides some much needed lightening in our living room and for about $40 in parts you get a serviceable lamp.

I wish I could fix my knee this easily. Ouch....

I'm not sure what my next project will be - probably seeing my doctor is my next project. 

See you all soon,

VW

Building a Floor Lamp-Discussion and Plans

Hi Everyone,

I hope you all are doing well and your autumn is getting off to a pleasant season.

My living room doesn't have any overhead lighting with the result that in order to read something, we have to have the windows open during the day or use the lights in the kitchen to illuminate this room. Basically we have really poor lighting in the living room. Now we did have a floor lamp in one corner of the living room but that is broken and all attempts to fix it have left it more broken than before. So it's time to do something about it.

There is a very simple floor lamp plan that was published online by Better Homes and Gardens at http://www.bhg.com/decorating/do-it-yourself/accents/how-to-build-your-own-floor-lamp/.
The lamp is a very simple lamp that can easily be made with simple tools and if you have a never ending scrap wood pile like I do, it could be made with scrap lumber. What's not to like about that?

Plan

Make a floor lamp out of some leftover pine 1"x2"s and hopefully illuminate this vampire cave that passes for a living room of mine.

Photos

Ok, here we go:

The plans call for 2x2 lumber and I had some nice, clear, usable 1x2 pine that I laminated together-in fact I had enough for the center post, the legs and the arm that the shade will hang from:

It took a day for all the laminating and cutting the parts to be finished:

And I beveled the ends of the legs so I won't stub my toe on a sharp corner on the floor:

The plans also call for a bracket that attaches to the central post and the arm. I bought a silver metal one and decided to paint it a different color. So I sprayed it with primer and set it aside to dry:

The next thing I did was to stain the wooden parts with Minwax penetrating stain/red chestnut stain and that looks pretty good. Once that was finished, I've taken them to my deck for finishing: 

Here is the central post after I've applied a coat of polyurethane. This is going to look nice:

Tomorrow, I'm going assemble the wooden part of the lamp and try and figure out the lamp kit I purchased for it. I'll also paint the metal bracket and get that ready to be installed. 

In the meantime, enjoy the fall colors and I'll see you tomorrow.

Stay tuned,
VW