A few years ago I bought this lovely lamp at a local thrift store. It has the most amazing pierced copper shade. But I soon learned why it had been abandoned by its previous owners – its touch sensor was haunted and would turned itself off and on at random. I quickly opted to keep it unplugged.
I told myself I’d wire a switch into it, but that was a big lie. A previous rewiring project on a vintage floor lamp had left me overwhelmed and disappointed. I never even got started on this one, assuming it would be equally challenging.
But today I finally did. After rearranging the furniture in the living room yesterday to accommodate the rocking chair, I realised that a practical lamp would be really helpful in that spot. I was motivated enough to overcome my fear and inertia.
The repair process was easy, as it turned out.
I unscrewed the shade and worked my way down the top of the lamp to make sure there weren’t any special parts up around the sockets (answer: no).
Then I unbolted the base and discovered the cause of the ghostly behaviour – the touch sensor was loosely attached onto the main stem of the body. It wiggled easily. I could have simply tightened it down and fixed the touch problem, but I preferred to have a switch.
So I unwired the control box and pulled the old cord. I replaced it with a white one I had from another project. It was already wired with a switch, so that make it super easy. I stripped the wires, connected them to the ones leading to the sockets, screwed on the safety caps. After testing my work, I put the whole thing back together and it was complete. Total time, 20 minutes.
Look at that pretty thing! Now I can use it whenever I want.
