Materials and the sequence of the job sit together on this page.
Hello you guys! It’s Brynne from The Gathered Home. I’m so happy to be here with you guys again sharing one of my latest Handmade projects. In July, I shared a walkthrough for a Handmade copper pipe candelabra and wouldn’t you know it, I’m back with another hardware-store-inspired project!
I’ve been wanting to add some swing-arm wall lamps to our bedroom for a while, but I wasn’t able to find a style I loved at a price point I could afford. One day I was scrolling through Pinterest and spotted a vivid accordion wall lamp from Pottery Barn Teen that, while well outside my price range, sparked an option.
I remembered that Ikea sells a wall-mounted accordion makeup mirror for $5 and I found the well fitted small clamp lamp from Home Depot for $7 with some quick online searching.
While the option came to me serendipitously, I’ve since found some other fantastic Ikea Frack hacks online and discovered I’m definitely not the first person with the option to convert it into a wall lamp. But I think there’s some saying about “great minds” that we can apply here.
Would you like to make some accordion wall lamps of your own?
Build a Handmade Accordion Wall Lamp
Supplies
- Ikea Frack mirror, $5 – This comes in 2 parts: the accordion arm and the swivel mirror. Set aside the mirror for future solid Handmade projects.
- Clamp light with reflector, $7
- Spray paint in your color of choice for the main portions of the lamp
- A complementary color of paint (I used acrylic craft paint) for the interior of the lamp
Step 1
The first thing I needed to do was figure out how to attach the head of the clamp light to the accordion arm of the mirror. The clamp is attached to the head of the lamp with two pieces of metal held in place with a wing nut.
I loosened the wing nut and remove the clamp section from the rest of the lamp. This piece on top of the clamp arm functions as a ball joint that allows the head of the lamp to pivot up and down.
I attached a 1/4″ hex nut to the top of the Frack accordion arm to function in the same way.
Voila! It works:
Step 2
After figuring out how I would assemble the finished lamp, it was actually time to take all the pieces apart for spraying painting. Not pictured: the two metal shades that I detached from the electrical socket for spray painting.
Note: I fully extended the accordion arms and spray painted them that way because we don’t plan on actually using the accordion folding function. I am not sure how the spray paint would hold up to that, so I plan on using them as “swing-arm” lamps.
I also chose not to paint the lamp cords because I liked the option of the black contrasting with the white.
Several light coats of white spray paint later, I decided that the metal shades needed a little detail…
I didn’t have the well fitted color paint on hand, so I mixed up a minty-aqua shade with some leftover trim paint and acrylic craft paints I had on hand and just brushed it inside the metal shades.
Step 3
Once all the paint was dry, I first mounted the accordion arms to the wall on either side of our bed using plastic wall anchors (not included with the Ikea Frack mirrors, just FYI).
Then I re-attached the electrical sockets to the metal shades:
And attached the shades to the Frack accordion arms, looping the cord around the arm.
I think they are the well fitted addition to our bedroom and I love the little hint of minty blue!
Bedroom FAQ’s: the brass bed frame was a Craigslist score, the walls are Wood Smoke by Glidden, the nightstands are thrift store redos (details coming soon to The Gathered Home), the chevron duvet is from West Elm, and the crazy fiber art wall hanging is a recent Handmade (walkthrough here). If you have any other questions, let me know!
I hope you enjoyed this walkthrough and if you make your own accordion wall lamp, I’d love to see!
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