Bottoms Up

interior design | home design | diy

bedroom ideas | home and garden |

lighting | home organization | sewing

crafts | hobbies | home

Issue 45

The Escapes Issue

Cook perfect pancakes
Build a modern rustic bench
Sew new life into a vintage dress

Bottoms Up

The classic wine glass, with its round base, thin stem, and tapered bowl, may be the least-suitable kitchen candidate for reinvention. Engineered by the glass-blowing masters of yore, it is the perfect union of delivery device (the wide basin allows for free circulation of the wine and the funneling of its vapors) and ceremonial object (so delicate! So genteel!). But the very frangibility that gives the wine glass its character makes it hard to keep it chip-free. Instead of tossing your lip-slicers into the trash, use them to construct this crystal chandelier. Like any fine wine, the centerpiece is both simple and complex, it's easy to make, but casts a shimmery glow worthy of any ballroom.

by Nicholas Furrow

Photos by Dan Saelinger

Turn Chipped Glasses Into A Crystal Chandelier

Use a screw-in hook and length of steel cable to suspend the S hook near the ceiling and under live electrical wires if you’re replacing another hanging lamp. Be sure it can comfortably bear 10 pounds.
Set the glasses upside down on your work surface (if you don’t have a collection of chipped ones, try your local dollar store or Ikea for a set).
Cut a 3’ length of cable and, using cable closers, close one end in a small loop around the stem of a glass and the other end around the stem of a second glass. Hang the linked glasses from the S hook in the middle of the cable. Repeat until all the glasses are suspended in a cluster.
By pulling on some of the glasses (one goes down, the other goes up), shape the cluster to your liking.
Attach the socket to a generous amount of wire if you’ll be running it along the wall to an outlet, screw in the bulb, and gently push it through the center of the wine glass cluster. Run the wire up through the jumbled steel cables and thread it through the S hook as shown above, making sure the bulb stays right in the center of the glasses.
Either wire the lamp cord to your live connection or run it along the ceiling and down to an outlet, cut off any excess cord, and install the plug and switch according to the package instructions.

We made our chandelier using 20 glasses. If your ceiling can withstand the weight, the project can be made with upwards of 60 glasses.