I should have done this three years ago.

Our oldest is going to be 15 soon and his room has looked like this since we moved in three years ago. Only usually it’s messier. I could never really nail down what he wanted “bright red shiny walls, wait, I want an Orca mural painted on the ceiling and a large saltwater aquarium, wait, can I just have black lights and no other lights and a mini fridge and my own microwave and a ladder coming from my window…”

He’s been on a week-long trip and it was the perfect time to clean every square inch.  We painted the walls a few months ago so from there I shopped the house and gathered some random black photo frames, a rug from one of my boys bedrooms that we aren’t using now that they are sharing a room–and also a chair that was available for the same reason, the dresser had been in his closet but why? and he desperately needed lighting so I used one of our extra lamps from our bedroom and a thrifted pendant light, a stick and some duct tape.  Really, I bought NOTHING for this makeover.  Again, WHY didn’t I do this three years ago?

teenage boy rooms

I’m still looking for some super dark blackout shades per his request of “it’s too bright in here when I’m trying to sleep at 11am.” But for free?  This is a huge improvement.

The DIY star of the room is this Duct Tap Light Cord.   I used Scotch Duct Tape, (thanks for sponsoring this post and supplying me with an embarrassing amount of duct tape!) a $5 pendant light that has been laying around for at least 6 months and a stick I found in the yard.  The pendant was so plain on its own and I wanted to funk it up a little.

The idea for the branch came from this photo whose source is buried somewhere deep in Pinterest.  I. LOVE. THE. BRANCH.

At first I simply hung the pendant from a hook in the ceiling. But once I brought the dresser in and moved the chair, I wanted to try something different.

duct tape project

The stick stays put because it’s wedged in between the window casing and a piece of drapery hardware that I secured to the wall.  And get this–it swivels and is surprisingly sturdy.

Here are the ingredients needed to create the pendant light:

1. A random pendant light

2. Scissors

3. Scotch Duct Tape (they have a ton of colors and patterns how fun would the paisley be for a girls room?)

I even made a little how to video for this project, you can view it here. 


Special thanks to Scotch Duct Tape and their challenge to create a project using tape from their new Colors and Patterns Line a new brand that helps you find your style that sticks–I LOVE a good challenge!

A few Duct Tape Resources for you:

And, you can take one of those style quizzes at the Scotch Duct Tape Website (I’m ALWAYS a sucker for a style quiz) here are my results and PHEW, my own project popped up first, I guess it really does work!

OH and yes, they are giving away an obscene amount of tape — 300 winners every day.

Have you created something out of duct tape? Stop by the Scotch Duct Tape facebook page and show them your project.