Thursday, February 17, 2011

trying to choose a lampshade

I would like to replace the lampshades on my lucite lamps.  The red is too bright for the room.  I'd like to do either a pretty fabric, or a natural material, like seagrass or burlap. 

I really like these two lampshades from Shades of Light:
trellis shade
Fretwork shade



But I don't want to spend $70 on a single lampshade. Plus they are 16 inch shades and I need a 13 inch shade.   Plus I need two of them.  Plus the shipping cost is ridiculous.

I am contemplating these seagrass shades from Ballard:

The price is easier to swallow and I really like the natural element.  But I wonder if seagrass would look weird on top of lucite. 

Or, I could recover a couple of $14 shades from Target. Unfortunately, all the cheap drumshades at Target are usually slightly sloped, about 13 inches at the top rim but 14 inches at the bottom.  This means that a geometric pattern will look crooked if you just wrap it around.    Its not impossible, you can cut out the fabric by rolling the lampshade over it (it will look like a smile-shaped piece fabric when you are done.)  Its kind of a pain.  I've done it before and I ended up throwing it away and paying more money for the straight up and down shade. 

To be honest, I have a whole bunch of projects I am working on at the moment, and I just don't feel like trying to find an easy fabric to work with and doing that.  I am in the mood for "put that in the shopping cart and lets be done with it. Which sometimes leads to "what was I thinking?" a few months down the road. 

Will seagrass look dumb with lucite?  

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