Standing Wooden Lamp with Pulley

This was one of the easiest projects ever. I have had a vintage pulley that I’ve been wanting to use as a light fixture but after hanging it from the ceiling in a bedroom, it just looked wrong. I set it aside for a while, along with the orange extension cord and light cage from Home Depot. I wish I could say I thought of this all on my own but I actually got the plans from Ana White after some googling and then tweaked the plans to fit my supply list.

I had several pieces of scrap wood, a couple lengths of 2×4’s and a carriage bolt with wing nut. The only thing I had to purchase for this project were the corner brackets, so this was super cheap. Ana White used 1×2’s, but I didn’t think those would support the pulley.

I didn’t get super technical with this project (mainly because math is super hard for me), so it was mostly good ol’ fashioned eyeballin’ it.

I started by deciding on the spot where I wanted the 2×4’s to intersect/hinge at the top. Again, no math involved here. I eyeballed it and drilled a hole the same size as my carriage bolt through both pieces where I wanted them to intersect. Just know that the arm piece that holds the light needs a bit of a tail on it to keep it balanced.

Next I screwed all of the scrap pieces of wood together and hit it with some flat black spray paint that I had in my stash.

Then attached the brackets to the base and the 2×4…

…using a bunch of random screws/hardware. It’s not the prettiest lamp base, but I knew I wanted this thing to go behind the couch in the man cave, so I didn’t really make much of an effort here. Also, I didn’t want to spend any money on it. Ana only used two brackets, which would be fine for 1×2, but since I was using 2×4’s, I went ahead and did all four sides.

Next I attached a little cup hook into the end of the arm, attached my pulley and light cord and boom, man cave light fixture.

This is the same room that the vintage tripod lamp lives in… aka Dallas Cowboys Man Cave.

This is also where our butcher block coffee table ended up. And there’s Howard chillin’ in his favorite spot next to his face pillow (you can order your own custom face pillow in my Etsy shop here).

Not bad for a coupla bucks, huh?

If you happen to spot one of these vintage pulley things and aren’t into the lamp idea, check out what Becky at Infarrantly Creative did with hers.