Chinese New Year Project

It's almost Chinese New Year.  This year we turn to the Year of the Dog on Friday, February 16th.  Finding appropriate, tasteful Chinese New Year decorations in the U.S. is NOT easy. This year C and I decided to hang a large, red lantern at our front door celebrating the new year, but we really couldn't find anything that we liked.  I even went to NYC to shop but came up empty-handed.  So remember my last post about 3 home projects?  One of them was to make a red lantern ourselves.

We found just what we needed at IKEA.  The Ilse Crawford designed bamboo pendant lamp (Sinnerlig) was perfect for what we were looking for.  It's large-scale and has a beautiful, modern shape.  The Sinnerlig is a hard-wired light fixture so C had to do some electrical modifications to turn it into a plug-in light.  We used Rustoleum spraypaint in Candy Apple Red which turned out great.  The lantern has a shiny lacquer finish.  C ordered a red bulb to use to give it even more of a glow.  The results are fantastic - don't you agree?  

Our lantern project also reminds me of those intricate Chinese birdcages made of bamboo. We're really happy with how this turned out.  Here is a view of it through one of the windows in our den.  C has worked out all the kinks of this project, so if you want one for yourself, we're taking orders now!