After installing the Morris Chair in my office I realized that it needed a floor lamp to make it an excellent reading chair. I looked around for a Craftsman style wooden floor lamp design and I didn’t really see anything usable. In the period they were more into table lamps that were made out of hammered metal. Lovely, but I’m not quite ready to learn metalwork. So I came up with my own design that I thought would go well with the chair and have Craftsman and Art Deco elements. I stole the proportions from floor lamps we had around the house and echoed the width of the lamp column from the size of the chair’s legs.
I had a bunch of quartersawn white oak left over from the Morris Chair build and I wanted to add some dark accents to the lamp with the black mesquite that I used in the Dice Box build. Originally I wanted to try to do a black mesquite inlay on the front of the lamp. After three different prototypes of cutting the grooves for the inlay in various ways I came up with a way that I was pretty sure would work and would be repeatable. However, I also realized that I had no extra stock, so if I fucked up I’d be stuck buying more wood and possibly delaying the project for weeks waiting for it. So, I decided that simplicity was the better part of valor and abandoned the inlay. I’ll try it on a smaller project in the future now that I have a process figured out.
Because of the dimensions of the stock that I had I made the lamp column in two parts. I glued up each section of the column out of a front and back piece that was rabbeted on each edge and two side pieces that fit into those rabbets. This helped register everything and make the column strong, straight and provided a 1/2” hollow space down the middle. I created a mortise and matching tenon on the respective ends of the column segments so that they would fit together securely and keep the joint square.
I glued the base up from a bunch of off-cuts. I made the trim frame around the base of the column out of some other off-cuts and the brackets out of black mesquite. I taped the blanks of black mesquite together into a block and transferred the profile of the bracket to the block on both sides and then I cut it out on the band saw. I did the rough sanding for the edges of the bracket on the sanding station with everything still taped together to get a pretty even and matching finish on all of them. The feet were just small square off-cuts.
I harvested the lamp hardware from an old table lamp that we had in the basement and I cleaned up and painted the 3/8” tube that was the guts of that lamp. I used a set screw in the top block of the lamp to hold the tube at whatever height I wanted. It turned out that no extension was the right answer but I didn’t have the lamp shade in hand so I was glad to have the ability to adjust it.
I’m still learning the right ways to keep things lined up when I’m gluing them so I had to trim and adjust the column segments after they were glued up. Fortunately I didn’t have to fix any serious movement of the pieces that would have made the column look crooked or wonky. After drilling a 1” hole in the center of base I fastened the lower part of the column to the base initially with glue and then I added four screws in pre-drilled holes for additional strength since it would be a pretty long lever possibly pulling on that joint. I added the feet with just two countersunk screws in each foot.
I glued and then screwed on the wider top oak block after drilling the 3/8” hole through both top blocks to allow for the lamp tube. I glued the smaller black mesquite block on top using the lamp tube to keep the holes aligned. I put in the hole for the set screw that holds the lamp tube in place and threaded a 1/4” 20 x 1 1/4” screw in as a set screw. I located it at what I had decided would be the back. The front was the side with the nicest grain pattern.
I finally glued and clamped the top and bottom of the lamp together and just let gravity keep the parts together and the clamps just keeping everything square and plumb.
I finished the lamp with Golden Oak Danish Oil, I love this stuff so easy to use and provides a lovely finish. It also makes the black mesquite a lovely deep purple brown/black color.
I got a replica brown rayon cloth wrapped cord and fished everything up through the column and the lamp tube and installed the harp for the shade and wired the light socket. It looks just right for this lamp.
I ordered an 18” amber mica lamp shade which I found on houzz.com and it was exactly what I was imagining when I designed the lamp. I think it looks great with the chair in my office and I’ve already spent some hours reading under it and it is very functional as well.
That’s it for this project, enjoy the pictures….
