I had been wanting to turn something into a lamp for a while now.  It’s one of those projects you see on the DIY/home-improvement shows and think, “That’s a cool/inexpensive/easy project that I could do” type of thing.  The problem was I could never find anything that was cool or inexpensive enough to try and do it myself. 

Finally, this past summer, while at my “Garden of Eden” of picking and DIYing, better known as Rogers Flea Market, I came across a pair of green Hemingray-42 telegraph pole insulators. 

I had seen them used before online and TV so I already had an idea of what I could do.  they looked cool, only cost $2.00 each, (can you say score) and made in the USA. (You just gotta love the good ole U. S. of A).  Are you kidding me?!  Do you understand those things never align at the same time!!  It’s as if the DIYer’s of old were shinning down on me and were in my head yelling to buy them.  (What it really was was the fear of Sarah-Marie slapping me if she knew I passed on such a good deal.)

I needed to find something to sit the insulators on and light them up! While cleaning my house one day, I found a pair of candlesticks that were an old gift that we were not using and I thought they would work as a base for this lamp idea.  I went to my local electrical supply store with my candlesticks and telegraph insulators in hand. 

The guys at Weirton Electric Supply Co. are some of the coolest guys you could ever meet and man, do they know their stuff.  They are always willing to help me with all of my crazy ideas I won’t go anywhere else.  We decided to take a long drill-bit and drill a hole directly through the center of the candlesticks.

Then I took an old wire hanger, taped the lamp cord to it and fished it through the hole.  I attached the plug to one end and used a pair of wire strippers to pull away the brown insulation on the other end exposing the two wires.

I then attached those two wires to the light bulb base.  Next was to glue the light bulb base to the top of the candlestick and screw in a night light bulb.

We ended up using a night light bulb instead of a decorative one because it put out so much heat causing one of the insulators to crack so loud it caused my wife to jump out of her skin and off the couch. This caused me to laugh Hysterically but that leads to a story for another time and place.

I think what I like most about this project is the versatility of the candlestick as a base. I could sand and paint them a different color or even end up covering them with some cool fabric. I hope you enjoy the finished product and I look forward to hearing your comments.