atla032608-ceilinglamp01.jpgA common apartment renter's dilemma is right above our heads: ugly ceiling light shades that seemed to have been passed out to every landlord in all of greater Los Angeles. Every darn rental I've moved into has these square or circle glass travesties against decor. So I set out to replace our ceiling shade with something more modern...

atla032608-ceilinglamp02.jpgHere's the old and tired hardware store buy-3-for-1 special we had in our bathroom. My girlfriend and I couldn't find a vintage ceiling shade we liked at the time (although we later found one for our living room with a beautiful midcentury starburst pattern), so we looked on eBay and found this dealer with a selection of moderately priced shades in our budget.

atla032608-ceilinglamp03.jpgThe hardware includes this important extension and connection piece, which allows for the shade to screw into your existing overhead lighting fixture. It also allows the the woven plastic sheeting form to avoid any contact with the bulbs (the CFL's we use are low heat anyhow).

On a side note, while installing this, I dropped the CFL bulb I had pulled out to straighten. It dropped into the tub and somehow didn't shatter. N:Vision bulbs are apparently built with mercury contained in a diamond shell...I was relieved I did not have to face my first CFL mercury emergency cleanup.

atla032608-ceilinglamp04.jpgSeriously an quick, easy change that made all the difference in our bathroom without any fooling around with any electrical tasks. Here's a close up of it lit up and a wider angle view of the ceiling shade off. We liked the results so much, we're bidding on another one!

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