Faking It

I love the mid-century standard lamp in my loft – a great find from my friends at Number 8 – on Sebert Road in Forest Gate. But it’s actually a bit of a fake. The stand was gorgeous but the  shade just a little bit too authentic: dirty cream with appliqued brown and orange strips, and some visibly aged yellow glue.

I bought the lamp in February, and six months later I gave up the search for a new shade. Everything was low and wide*, whereas I wanted to respect the original cylinder-style proportions.

I decided to make my own but couldn’t even source a kit the right shape. So with the help of my good friend and neighbour Kirsten we stripped off the original fabric and reused the wire structure . The new ‘vintage’ shade is made of a remnant of Sanderson Wrappings wallpaper (now discontinued) from another project. It was a little fiddly and it definitely helped to have two people but it was a surprisingly quick project – around an hour from start to finish.

The paper is meant to be hung with the stripes running vertically, but I think the horizontal look works (and made things a lot easier as we had a straight edge to line up with). Hope you like the finished result Andie and Geoff.

*This was in 2014, much improved selection of tall narrow shades available now, from Heals and Tamasyn Gambell to name but two.