Brilliant idea #5 – making windchime into light fixture

I had a windchime I bought at Pier One for $10. It was on the back porch and made a nice tinkling sound in the breeze.

The back porch needed to be painted, desperately. And I looked at the back porch and saw that the bulb of the light fixture was bare and unattractive, and when the porch was eventually painted I would want something nicer there, but didn’t want to spend any money (and couldn’t afford to!).

So I had the brilliant idea to use the wind chime and create something that would hang around the light bulb and mask it. The chimes would still sound and the ugly bare bulb would be hidden.

I took down the old windchime and cut off all the pieces to be restrung on wire instead of plastic that might melt and pose a fire hazard near the light bulb.

That is all I have accomplished so far, as I procrastinated and did not get the porch painted. But this spring I will finish this project and display the results here!

(The windchime and bare bulb in question.)















UPDATE!

The redone light fixture, June 2008.

Yes, the rest of the porch still needs to be painted, but the inside has been done and I cleaned off all the capiz shell disks and strung them on thin copper wire I took from an old light cord. I used copper to make the rings around the top, but I don't qhite like the way it looks yet so I think I am going to go out someday when I am painting and make the copper pieces white so they blond into the porch roof better. I'm a little concerned at how the skinny wire will do during a really windy day, because they always used to get tangled and wire will be more difficult that plastic to untangle. But, it has some protection from the overhang around the roof, so it might not get as much wind as it did before.

At any rate, it looks better than a bare bulb!