Thursday, August 18, 2011

How to Make Victorian Lamp Shades


During the Victorian era lighting was primarily from gas. But with Edison�s improved design of the incandescent light bulb in 1879, electric lighting began replacing gas lighting in Victorian homes. This change became the catalyst for a variety of lamp shades made to shield the glaring light bulbs.


Since it had started to rain and we had no umbrellas, we headed underground again, into �PATH�, downtown Toronto's underground walkway linking 27 kilometres of shopping, services and entertainment. PATH connects about 1,200 retail shops and services and more than 50 buildings / office towers. 20 parking garages, 5 subway stations, 2 major department stores, 6 major hotels, and a railway terminal are also accessible through PATH.So it was only fitting that my good friend Shauna, another aficionado of Art Deco, and I would pick a few beauties dating back to that era from the 144 buildings that opened their doors to the public for free. We started with the Beaux-Arts / neoclassical Canada Life Building, built on University Avenue, Toronto�s biggest thoroughfare.Shade frames can usually be recovered or new ones purchased. An antique frame is stripped, covered with rust-retardant and recovered. Over the years, a large variety of styles were designed. Interesting, all the frames have names. Since flowers played such an important role in the Victorian decorating scheme, many have names such as Tulip and Daffodil.Just about 10 minutes away at 320 Bay Street we visited the next architectural beauty: the Canada Permanent Building, also constructed between 1928 and 1930. It features Classical Revival Styling with Art Deco influences and the visually astounding Banking Hall with its marble floors, high ceilings, and Art Deco chandeliers, reproductions that were hand-crafted from photographs as the original chandeliers were lost when the building closed. The Safety Deposit Vault with its exquisitely crafted brass gates, is also accessible, it has now been turned into a conference room. Last but not least, we admired the elevator doors that are decorated with bas-relief brass panels, showing a variety of mythical figures, as well as an original mail chute from the 1930s, the only such mail chute in Toronto still in active use today.We walked one floor up from the Trading Floor and saw an interesting exhibition on examples of low-cost yet effective Canadian architecture, showing recent public buildings (libraries, university buildings, community centres) that were built at half or even one third the cost per square foot of an average condominium building (C$303 per square foot). Behind the PSF exhibition we also visited the "TSA Poster Competition" which exhibits entrants in the Toronto Society of Architects poster competition celebrating May as Architecture and Design Month. On the north side of the building we also visited the only permanent collection of modern Canadian industrial design in the country where we admired post-war designs of tea kettles, chairs and furniture, thermos bottles, Tupperware dishes, electric frying pans and various other household items. It was funny seeing a lot of these items in a museum setting since a lot of them can still be seen in active use in Canadian households today.The final touch was the �Canada Life Environmental Room� in the newer Canada Life Building next door which houses a variety of plants and aquatic creatures along walls made from lava rock. It looks like a tropical rain forest and is a joint project with the University of Guelph to study the effect of plants on indoor air quality. Quite a serene place that is used for meetings, presentations and even weddings.In the kitchen a chandelier is generally not suitable, unless there is a large amount of space over the kitchen table where the majority of dining and eating takes place. Otherwise a kitchen needs a large amount of task lighting so cooking is easy to do. If you do want some mood lighting in your kitchen as well as task lighting then you could always find some dimmer switches for the main lights. These can be turned up high when cooking and turned right down low when eating or entertaining.

Copyright 2006 Candy Arnold




Author: Candy Arnold


1 comment:

  1. Install chandelier is a wonderful way to lighten up your home decoration. You have shared such a nice thought that always find some dimmer switches for the main lights. Nice Post!
    http://www.expertlightinginc.com/installation.html

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