Years ago, I bought a second-hand stage light to use with my wife’s puppet shows. The light was not in great condition when I bought it and over the years it got knocked around a bit more.
No longer having a use for it, I attempted to sell it on Gumtree. With no interest shown in it, I decided to upcycle it.
I had often seen floor lamps made to look like old style spotlights and liked the look of them. But the price put me off as they were generally well over $100.
I toyed with the idea of making my own tripod stand and came up with several simple designs. But then I saw Big W had a special on a tripod based standard lamp that was priced at $25, so a quick visit to my local Big W and I had the base for my floor lamp.
The original stage light looked a bit worse for wear, so I broke it right down to its individual parts for renovation. A undertook a little bit of light panel beating to get rid of the worst dents. Then I sanded it, I painted it with a hammered copper spray. The hammered finish helping to partially cover up the condition of the body.
A 500W spotlight globe wasn’t the ideal output for a floor lamp so I replaced it with a standard Edison screw fitting. I then fitted a smart LED globe which I can turn on and off via my Amazon Alexa.
My purchased tripod wasn’t quite tall enough. A solution to this was to top it with a 45mm diameter dowel. This lifted the position of the lamp to the desired height.
Finally, I stained the pine tripod to a darker maple to match the furniture where I wanted to put the lamp.
The result is a unique decorative floor lamp that cost me around $50 (tripod, stain, dowel and light fitting) compared to $150+.
