Personalizing Home, Temporarily

The builder's special. Boob light. Whatever you call it, it's an eyesore to me. Our apartment features 6 of them: 1 in the bedroom, 1 in the closet, 1 in the bathroom, 1 in the living room, and 2 in the kitchen. The one in the closet isn't a big deal, it's behind a closed door. The ones in the bathroom and kitchen don't irk me, I think, because both rooms are so small the perspective offered while in the space doesn't allow my eye to take in the ceiling and the ugly light fixtures. So, that leaves the bedroom and the living room to deal with. And because this is an apartment, we are prevented by our lease agreement from doing anything permanent, such as swapping out the fixture entirely. Whatever changes we make need to be completely reversible. And budget friendly. And reusable in another manner when we move to bigger digs someday. All while leaving the bulbs accessible for changing when needed, yet not exposed because the inside of these fixtures look like aluminum foil which is more of an eyesore than the fixture itself.

A trip to our local architectural salvage resale shop offered up this gem; a protective cage that once covered a clock in a gym, keeping the clock safe from flying basketballs. The base is large enough to surround the metal disk of the boob light, which is permanently affixed to the ceiling. The cage will replace the frosted glass globe.

I have it in mind to line the inside of the cage with muslin. In theory, this will soften the light cast from the fixture and provide a visual barrier to the ugly fixture inside the cage.

Experiments are underway with a fabric stiffening product that is both non-toxic and non-flammable. It remains to be seen if it will provide the fabric molding and rigidity qualities I'm after. It seems to be allowing the fabric to hold shape, but does not provide adherence to the metal cage or between pieces of fabric. A little more fiddling is in order. Glue to attach the overlapping fabric pieces to each other? Or stitches to secure the fabric to itself and to the cage, sparse enough to allow the cage to viewed in all its beauty?