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Laundry Room Makeover, Part 1: Barn Pendant with Jute-Wrapped Cord

Laundry Room Makeover

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My {Frugal} Laundry Room Makeover, Part One

As I mentioned in This Old House, we live in an old house.  Currently, although the home has quite a few quirks, we’ve decided to make do without any major structural changes while we ponder the pros and cons of spending money on renovations or building a new “old” home.  Or living in this house forever, the way it is…

Therefore, my task is to beautify and organize this home with purely aesthetic adjustments.  Ergo, this {Frugal} Laundry Room Makeover.

Today, we’ll consider the light fixture.

Laundry Room Light Fixture, Before
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Laundry Room Light Fixture, Before.
Not hideously terrible, but not exactly my style. At all.
It irritated me every time I caught a glimpse of it. (Did I mention it was in the laundry room, where I happen to spend a great deal of time?)

 

I found a barn-style pendant light for $5 at our local Habitat for Humanity Restore.  The cord was your basic {ugly & unsightly} electrical wire cover, but I felt sure I could come up with something to hide it.

Like this cord cover from Ballard Designs, in burlap, which I almost purchased.  Pottery Barn sells one, too.  When a certain friend and decorating buddy learned of my plans, she was aghast that I would spend $25 + shipping, just to hide a few inches of electrical cord.  She promptly dropped off her spool of jute cording and encouraged me to wrap it myself.

So I did!

I’m sorry to say I have no pictures of the project in process, because it took only a few minutes and I was all alone.  Simultaneous cord-wrapping and photographing was out of the question, and it was not a project that could be paused mid-way.  Once I started wrapping, I had to wrap the entire cord and tie off the end.

If you look closely at the photo at the top of this page, you’ll notice the end of the jute cord dangling down a bit over the pendant.  This picture was taken before I cut off the loose end.

Here, the astute reader might pause to ask, Why not wrap the cord before hanging the fixture?  That, my friend, is a good question.  It’s exactly what I would recommend.  (Do as I say, not as I do.)  

But, in typical fashion, this project was not well-thought out.
First, I asked Mr. Native Texan How hard would it be to take down the old fixture?
Well, let’s see, he says.
Down comes the old fixture.
Um, now there’s no light in here.  Darn.
Well, it would be silly to put the old fixture back up, when what I really want is to see whether or not we like the barn pendant.
Shouldn’t be too hard, says {the saintly} Mr. Native Texan.
Before I knew it, there was the “new” pendant, hanging from the laundry room ceiling.
The old pendant had been fixed to the ceiling, giving it a low profile that prevented contact with the door when opened.  We weren’t sure how the new pendant would perform, as it would hang much lower than the previous fixture.
It was fine, though, and we even liked the height at which Mr. Native Texan had suspended the barn pendant.  (He had to cut off quite a bit of extra wire that came with the pendant.)

In other words, all of a sudden I had a new light fixture.  Mr. Native Texan wasn’t too keen on taking it down and putting it up again later, after I’d wrapped the cord.  Plus, we’d be without a light in the meantime.

So the pendant stayed where it was, and I wrapped the cord by standing on a tall step stool, with my arms raised above my head at an awkward angle.  And that is why there are no step-by-step pictures.  My apologies.

Now, back to the instructions…

The basic steps:

  1. Cut a piece of jute cord, much longer than you think you’ll need. 🙂
  2. Starting at one end, pull several inches of the jute cord down the cord you are wrapping.  
  3. Then start wrapping at one end, over the extra length of jute you just pulled down.  (This will make much more sense if you visit the tutorials mentioned below).
  4. Wrap the entire cord with jute, keeping the jute taut and pushing the wrapped part up every now and then to keep it all tight and uniform.
  5. At the end, cut the jute with a good-sized tail left over.  You’ll use this tail to tie a few knots.  
  6. Tie the knots however you like.  I tried to follow the instructions in the tutorial below, and it turned out a bit quirky.  But quirky fits for me, and truly, hardly anyone even notices it except for moi. 

This DIY Project: Knotted Lamp Cord from Design Sponge was my inspiration, though I didn’t set out to achieve such an elaborate look.  I just wanted a simply wrapped cord, one that wouldn’t unravel!  It’s been almost a year since my cord-wrapping experiment, and the DIY project still looks great.  {Whew!}

This How to Wrap a Pipe with Rope tutorial from Apartment Therapy was helpful, too.

Laundry Room Light Fixture, After
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Here’s a closer shot of the finished product, sans the extra jute tail. I’m so pleased with my $5 light fixture makeover!

Check out more Home Decor projects from Yankee Homestead:

 

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Kathleen | Roots & Boots

Let's get real! I’m Kathleen Henderson, your Natural Living Mentor. I’m on a mission to help families see the joy in real food, while finding natural remedies and creating a nontoxic home. Learn more about my story >>

2 Comments

  1. Angela @ Cottage Magpie on 05/19/2013 at 7:47 pm

    What a clever solution!!! I think it looks fantastic. We’re in exactly the same boat of trying to decide where to go in the future with our home. Do we want to just stay where we are and love our house with minor changes? Do we want to invest some real money in changing this house to match our dreams? Do we want to try and find the “perfect” old house? Or do we want to build a “new old” house? So hard to decide. I think for now we’ve decided to stay and maybe renovate, maybe not, but I reserve the right to change my mind (only about every two seconds!) 🙂 ~Angela~

    • Kathleen on 05/20/2013 at 2:57 am

      Thanks for stopping by, and good luck with your own quandary… 🙂

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