Wednesday, December 24, 2014

DIY budget orb chandelier

Merry Christmas everyone! This whole week our family has been taking things very slow and just relaxing since hubby was off for the week. Our home has been decorated since mid November so it was really nice to just sit back and relax. All presents have been ordered online so all I had to do was wrap them. Aside from wishing everyone a blessed and Merry Christmas I wanted to share my DIY budget friendly orb chandelier tutorial. 

List of supplies: 
four hula hoops from Dollartree
strong tape such as packing tape 
ribbon or thin string
paint color of your choice
paint brush
chandelier of your choice 

I bought my chandelier from Overstock a very long time ago using a coupon I had. I forgot how much my chandelier cost but around $50-60. During that time, I went to Belamaria Frontier homes in Ontario when they had their model home showing and saw a gorgeous orb chandelier in one of the models. 



I came home and couldn't stop thinking about it. I wanted to buy one for our bedroom because our bedroom was just so boring and in desperate need for some attention. I considered buying an orb chandelier but realized they just cost way too much. For a simple 20 inch orb chandelier I am looking at spending about $300. 

After bugging my father and father in law to install the chandelier for me this is what I got: 


I had a fan in place and my dad didn't know how to properly remove it so he needed his witty sidekick.. my father in law but low and behold.. he loves to cut corners so this is what I ended up with. Somehow between the two grown men they were convinced this is how a chandelier should look hanging.. with a huge gap, no chain, and stuck on the ceiling. So long story short my chandelier sat like that for a very long time. After the length adjustment, I was able to officially work on my orb chandelier. 

To get started I cut two hula hoops in half and taped them onto a third hula hoop. I had to play around with the hoops for a little bit before figuring out how to tape it so they would stay. I used packing tape since it was strong and taped the two open ends together leaving a small gap so I can insert the third hula hoop that was uncut. 



I tied my hula hoop onto the chandelier with some thin christmas ribbon I had laying around. 

Once attached to the chandelier I added the last hula hoop in the middle and tied it down with ribbon again.  Below is a close up picture of the bottom with unpainted clear packing tape and the white ribbon that ties the middle hula hoop to the other hula hoops. 



Here it is once again with a first coat of black paint. I painted the hula hoops before I hung them up so it would be easier to touch up the unpainted parts. Once the hula hoops are painted you can't really tell there's tape on them unless you look very close. The chandelier is hung pretty high and in the center of the room right under the foot of my bed so you have to stare at it to look for its flaws.




I repainted the whole chandelier twice to make sure I didn't miss any crevices. Here's how it looks in our unfinished bedroom. Pictures were also taken later on during the day so images aren't as clear. 




This is the view from my bathroom looking into our bedroom. Notice I recently just hung some ikea curtains on our window. 


This is how my room looks when you first enter. 






Ignore all of Kaley's temp bed and chair. It was a temporary solution until she was old enough to move out of our room. She's officially out now so we will be removing those soon. 

My DIY orb chandelier isn't perfect but it is good enough for our bedroom.  It was an easy, simple affordable upgrade to an other wise basic chandelier.  It sure makes me feel like our bedroom is one step closer to being complete.