In the kitchen at the ‘Little Brick Cottage’ we have a peninsula in the new floor plan, and it seemed fitting to have some pendant lights hanging over that peninsula. When I started looking however, I couldn’t find anything that stayed in our budget and looked like a simple farmhouse style light.
So, as it often does, necessity led to creativity…
I made a mason jar pendant light, well 3 in fact, to hang off the track light repurposing vintage blue canning jars and old zinc lids.
I’ve said before how much I like using track lighting, and the simple cleverness of the track pendant adapter for just this purpose, (like how I showed you I used it in the dining room at ‘Our House’). The versatility it gives is very effective, especially in a kitchen where a lot of specific task lighting is needed. You can just add another fixture if need be and point it to where you want. That’s what we have mounted above the peninsula here, so the small fixtures are for the function,
but I wanted something for the form part, you know to look pretty, and that’s where the jar pendant lights come into the picture. Here’s how I made them:
Here are all the supplies I used for this project. The chain I had in the junk drawer, and the lamp cord too… the track light pendant adapters I bought at Menard’s, the only place I’ve ever found them, they run around $8 each, the ceramic fixtures were less than that, I think around $3 and I picked those up at Menard’s too.
Oh and the jars and lids, well I didn’t get those at Menard’s, in fact I swapped one of the carpenters helping me with the cottage some of the old windows we took out in exchange for the jars and lids. His wife was thrilled to get the old windows for crafts, (I kept a few windows for myself to use) and I was thrilled to get the jars and lids… it was a great trade!
If you’re familiar with old zinc lids you know they have a glass liner inside them, I sadly had to hammer that and break it out to be able to repurpose these jars, but I consoled myself with at least this way they’re being used and displayed…
So once the lid glass was out here are the steps I did to simply wire together the lamps:
I drilled vent holes in the lid, just in case the light bulbs heated up inside there? I just figured better safe than sorry.
And speaking of lightbulbs, since you are looking directly at the lights, I used a super low watt bulb, also it had to be small to fit inside the mouth of the jar. Remember these pendants are for the form, not the function of lighting needs.
By having the chain hook to the pendant adapter at the top and screw into the rod in the lid, all the weight of the light, (which actually isn’t very much, but still…) goes onto the chain, and not onto the cord, which would not be safe.
The simple farmhouse style of the canning jar lights compliments the antique cottage’s kitchen so well. It’s a sweet statement of how life once was in this little brick cottage.
Here are more posts featuring this little brick cottage renovation:
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