Artecnica makes a beautiful Garland Light Shade, which clips onto standard light bulbs and can be twisted into practically any shape. It comes in black chrome, brass, silver and white, so you should be able to find a color that suits the rest of your bungalow.

http://www.allmodern.com/Artecnica-Garland-Light-Shade-F-841-AIC1014.html

Good luck!

See that thing sticking out in the middle of the fixture? It unscrews and you can replace it with a longer piece and attach a disk shade below the lightbulbs. It's not particularly interesting (although you could probably paint or otherwise decorate the disk), but it works.

I have the exact same fixture with the same bare bulbs in my 1920's apartment. Thank you for the post, I have been at such a loss too.

Why not embrace the fixture as is and go for cool light bulbs??? You can get really neat Edison-style bulbs that throw a cool light, or perhaps decorative globe-shaped bulbs. Even clear, chandelier-style bulbs woudn't look bad!

http://www.engineeryourspace.com/episodes/how-to-make-a-drum-shade/ You'll have to figure out a different way of attaching the shade but this works so well and is easy.

Don't cover them! The fixture is meant to have bare bulbs. Replace the bulbs with Edison style bulbs, which are appropriate to the fixture, are interesting to look at and give a nice warm glow. If you're feeling industrious you could also strip the paint off the fixture. It is most likely brass underneath.

I'd get bulbs which have are silvered half way which will direct the light back up to the ceiling and be less harsh.

I live in an older house and have a fixture like this that I actually want to keep! (My impression is that this bare bulb style was common in the early days of electricity; you can find lots of fixtures in this style listed on ebay.) I am planning on using some spherical CFL's for the fixture, but there are also decorative spherical incandescent bulbs available. I would love to hear other ideas, though.

I have fixtures like that in my house and they are meant to have bare bulbs (mine are shown in an old Sears catalog). When I saw them in the catalog, I realized the bulbs were intended to be round globes. You can find the bulbs online at rejuvenation.com. That small difference made the fixtures look right, instead of something I hated every time I saw them!

Fastest, cheapest thing to do; get two of the large white 'flame like ridges' light bulbs from Target or Wart-Mall. They'll look more 'period' and less 'bare bulb'.

Have you seen the David Weeks/Lindsey Adelman "Lunette"? It clips directly on to bare bulbs. It's $32 and can be purchased from tweekstudio.com. Adelman collaborated on the shade with Weeks before she became a lighting design superstar in her own right.

I was going to say the same thing Travis did above. Easiest thing to do would be to get some edison style bulbs, you can order then various places on the internet (shop around for a good price). Then all you have to do is replace the bulbs and it will look way cooler.

http://classifieds.apartmenttherapy.com/posts/13121-tord-boontje-garland-light

I say embrace bare bulbs and purchase some interesting looking bulbs with the fancy filaments, like the ones featured in the last restoration hardware catalogue.

Great question! I lived in an apartment with a fixture like this for years and never did find anything that would work. I loved the period look of the fixture so I didn't want to cover it entirely but I hated the bare bulbs. I agree with the above posters who suggested buying specialty bulbs that are meant to be bare. Good luck!

4th-ing the Edison bulbs. These date from the days when electricity was thrilling and no one would've dreamt of hiding it. Check out Grand Central, it's covered with them.
http://www.deadprogrammer.com/photos/grand-central-lighting.jpg?9d7bd4

Another bonus of Edison bulbs is that they never ever burn out, we have ones that have been lit for 20 years!

To be correct they usually had globe style bulbs, but usually they were painted, most often an orange/pink color. Rejuvenation has them, but you can also get several different kinds from Just Bulbs in NYC

I have one of these, http://www.leklint.com/en-GB/Products/Loftlamper.aspx?ProductID=PROD176, I think it would fit. You may or not need smaller bulbs but it attaches with just a spring. Super easy to put up and won't damage what is already there.

Oh that thing is pretty. Don't cover it up.

I think a bigger worry than the look of the fixture is the fact that the "charming 1928 bungalow" might have knob and tube wiring. K&T was installed in days when much less electricity was used in a house than is used now and I don't know a single city where it's to code now.

It's absolutely necessary to make sure if the loads you're placing on the circuits is appropriate. If you repeatedly blow fuses, it means you've got too much power on that circuit. Rather than installing a larger fuse, you MUST find out what's overloading it. Also, it's really easy to get shocked on items plugged into K&T. Make absolutely sure the power is off before you change a light bulb on this fixture. It's also possible to fry expensive electronic equipment plugging it into an overloaded K&T circuit.

Some electricians rewire with circuit breakers but leave K&T in the ceilings because they would damage the ceilings (especially vintage plaster) rewiring. If you ONLY have an overhead light on that ceiling circuit, it's not much of a hazard, but I'm not so sure about ceiling fans.

Above all, make sure you have smoke detectors in that bungalow. Unless your home has been rewired to current code (do you have circuit breakers instead of fuses for a start?), you could be living in a fire hazard.

We have an old house full of knob and tube wiring. Both our inspector and our electrician said it was in fine shape (in Philly, code doesn't require the replacement of k&t), but as we have work done we replace it little by little, especially on outlets with a big load (AC, etc.). The big problem with k&t is insulating around it, because it requires space around it to dissipate the heat. If you're dealing with k&t, find an electrician that's familiar with it. If they say you have to replace it all, get a second opinion.

I really like the IQ light, which comes in pieces that can be arranged in a variety of shapes:

http://www.iqlight.com/

I bought some good quality knock-offs on eBay. And DIY instructions abound.

Wow, thanks for all of the responses! I've got my research cut out for me!

I'm thinking I'll go with globes from rejuvenation.com!