Monday, August 18, 2008

Under-lit Galant work space

Len had a job for a few months where his office desperately needed to be refitted. With a limited budget, he went to Ikea to find a way to make his work area more cool and funky.

He says, "I succeeded, and a lot of the credit goes to this really easy hack of a Galant desk. There are several pieces in the Galant family. I chose the silver A-Frame adjustable legs and the Galant rectangular 'desktop with frame.' The desktop is glass, slick on the top surface and frosted (translucent) on the bottom surface. The frame is a rectangle underneath the glass. As soon as I saw this desk, I knew I had to find a way to light it from below. A quick trip through the lighting department led me to the Dinge lights. They are available in a translucent white/grey that goes perfectly with the silver painted frame of the desk. When paired with the correct Sparsam fluorescent bulbs two of these will consume less than 15W of power while providing a bright, crisp white light.

If you screw open the clamp on the Dinge all the way it just exactly fits on the frame of the Galant desktop, pointing upwards to shine on the underside of the glass top. Use some white zip-ties to secure the cords to the frame, and you're done!

These photos don't do it justice... the lighting is really pretty even rather than being the distinct 'hot spots' shown in the photos (blame the camera). I really miss this desk & lighting, so I may re-create it someday."

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5 comments:

  1. The lighting does look really nice, at least if you can picture it better then what the picture shows. Lighting never comes out right it most pictures.

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  2. Doesn't the table get hot around the areas where the light is shining through?

    ReplyDelete

  3. No, the bulbs I used are IKEA compact florescents, and are cool to the touch, so they don't radiate any heat onto the glass.

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  4. I saw this and was inspired to try putting a spare string of blue LED lights from Habitat under my (Ikea) desk, simply trapping the wires between the trestles and the glass.

    It will be interesting to see what it's like when the light fades later on.

    Here's a couple of pics:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/fantomning/2836285437/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/fantomning/2836285443/

    ReplyDelete

  5. Here's hoping you still check this --

    any idea what it would look like with the black or white glass?

    ReplyDelete

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