This is Not a Home Dec Blog

But this is about the sewing room, so a note will be made here.

This room was lit by an ignominious boob light

 

Which  of course illuminated the room in a perfectly serviceable manner--and, anyway, most craft activities were performed under task lights, so general illumination wasn't so important.

Still.

Boob light.

Most DIY-for-cheap blogs enthusiastically endorse the act of acquiring a nice drum-shaped lamp shade and attaching that to conceal the boob shape.  I visited local thrift stores every week in search of a suitable shade, with a vague hope that I could find an entire light fixture that could be swapped in instead.

And, before I found a suitable shade, I did indeed find a light fixture:

(yes, a whole 99¢, and that included not only the light fixture itself, but also two LED bulbs and a whole lot of dead moths.)

There was, however, no simple "swap" involved--this thing had to be rewired (hissssss) and I ditched the shade, because I didn't want to feel like a UFO was hovering overhead .  I looked at glass shades in one of the big box hardware stores and decided to keep looking, because, if I was going to spend Real Money, I should get shades that I Really Liked.  Then I visited another thrift store (a whole two days after buying the light) and, heh, whaddaya know, there was a set of three glass shades for $2.  When I'm not spending Real Money, I'm not nearly as picky.

I was willing to try to rewire this by myself, but Husband pitched in and, despite all the cursing, it got rewired and hung a lot faster than if I had been working alone.

 And he also convinced me to splurge a  few dollars and get the not-absolutely-cheapest dimmable 800 lumen LED lights, making the total cost spent on this right around $25

And it is wonderful.  The three 60W-equivalent daylight bulbs are a lot brighter and more appealing to me than the two 60W equivalent (but lower lumen) warm bulbs that had been in the boob light.

I plan to get a dimmer switch, too--part of the reason I didn't use the original light a lot was because, in the evening when I'm not working on projects, I don't want super bright light...but there's really no place to put a lamp near my computer, so I generally typed by squinting in the dark, because the other lamps in the room work very well for illuminating tasks, but not so well for ambient lighting.  I had been thinking of getting an RGB keyboard, but, the cost of this light project + a dimmer switch will be less...  And I get a nice non-boob light.