When I was a kid, I spent tons of time walking under the power lines at my grandparents’ farm, hunting for old glass insulators. Over the years, I ended up with quite a colorful collection, and I love the idea of turning those fond memories into beautiful DIY glass insulator pendant lamps!
In my opinion, glass insulators are one of prettiest reminders of the history of electricity, and I’ve always been drawn to their colors and how substantial they feel in my hand. But, despite my absolute delight whenever I come across a new one, I’ve never really been sure what I should actually do with them once I’ve gotten them home and cleaned up. That’s where this project comes in.
Ready to illuminate your favorite nook with some glass from the past? You’ll definitely want to check out this tutorial for making a DIY glass insulator pendant lamp from Girl in Air!
Like the ones used in this tutorial, the insulators I collected growing up were most often light green, but they can also be found in a variety of eye-catching colors — clear, dark green, blue, purple, yellow, and amber to name a few — depending on where you’re looking and for which company they were manufactured. So, if you’ve got a specific color scheme in mind to suit your decor, you might want to hit up your local antique mall or flea market to see what’s available in your area.
3 thoughts on “Glass from the Past: Make a Lamp With Vintage Power Line Insulators”
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This style is actually a Telegraph Insulator. The particular shape was Western Union Telegraph’s standard ( and adopted by AT&T ) for about 20 years just after the turn of the last century.
Love the look, be careful of heat however, might want to consider LED lamps for brighter applications.
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Thanks for the additional info–I knew that telegraph lines used insulators too, but I wasn’t thinking about them when I wrote the post!
I definitely agree with you re: using LED lamps–I always do that in my own projects to avoid excess heat.