West Elm Inspired DIY Tripod Floor Lamp

Hi friends! I hope you are smack dab in the middle of a fantastic weekend! I'm really excited to share my West Elm knock off tripod floor lamp with you today!

We have been busy DIYers around here, which has paid off because today is the first day of my Knock Off Decor Series and I am so excited about it!

One, because it is my first ever series, but also because all of those awkward moments taking photos of the lovely things I see in stores, only to get the stink eye from the people working there will finally pay off! Do you ever do that? I almost always enter a home decor store ready to shop for take pictures of what I can recreate.

West Elm is one of my favorite stores and when I was browsing around in there a few months ago, I fell in love with their wood tripod floor lamp.

Then I immediately fell out of love with it because it was $250 bucks.

Then I fell in love with the idea of recreating my own very similar one. And so my DIY West Elm knockoff version was born and I'm going to show you how we made it for just under 40 bucks!

Isn't it pretty?

I think I came pretty close to the one that inspired it all don't you?

So are you ready to make your own? If you can make a few cuts with a saw and do a little bit of drilling, you can do this project. I'll walk you through it and give you some little tips along the way so you can avoid some of my mistakes.

How to build a Wood Tripod Floor Lamp

Supplies

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Three each ¾ inch square, 6 ft. long pieces of wood for the legs of the lamp. Get wood that looks nice and smooth especially if you're going to leave it natural like I did.
¼ inch metal cable clips to attach the metal ring at the bottom. (I found these at the hardware store next to the cable wire.)
Lamp kit
6 inch brass nipple
pack of nuts and washers for lamp parts
4 inch piece of scrap wood that is about 1-½ or 2 inches thick to hold the top of the legs together and to hold your light. (I used MDF board from the trash can in the back of the Home Depot.)
Can of spray paint to paint your metal pieces and the cord. (I used Krylon Gold Metallic spray paint.)
3 screws to attach the legs
Lamp shade and bulb
The top metal ring of a 16 inch lamp shade. It needs to be one with 3 prongs like the one in the photo above. (I found mine at the Salvation Army for 3 dollars and ripped out the top ring.)

Step 1: Spray paint

Spray paint the top ring of the lamp shade that you ripped apart, 3 cable clips and screws that go with them, and your cord in the color of your choice.

Step 2: Cut each wood leg

Cut each of your wood legs to 55 inches at a 5° angle at the top and bottom, making sure that the surfaces of the ends are parallel.

Step 3: Decide placement of bottom ring and attach cable clips

Have a buddy hold up your cut legs in the position that they will be on your finished lamp, while you hold the ring in place toward the bottom and mark where the cable clips will go.

You want your lamp to be steady, so make sure that the legs are not too close together. My ring was 15 inches and the ring ended up being 15 inches from the bottom of the legs. If your ring is a little bit smaller, you will need to move it up to keep the tripod wide enough.

Once you have marked where your ring will go, attach the cable clips to the inside side of each leg.

This part gave us a bit of trouble but here is what finally worked.

Step 4: Create a triangle to hold everything together

Cut a triangle out of your scrap piece of wood that is 3 ½ inches on each side. Then, mark ¾ of an inch in from each point on all sides and cut each point off at a 10 ° angle.

Pre drill a hole for the nipple of the light kit in the center of your triangle too. (We didn't do this and realized that it would be easier to drill this hole before attaching the legs…whoops!)

Step 5: Attach the legs

It is really important to pre drill your holes and go slow because you are working with small pieces of wood and you don’t want them to split.

So, pre drill holes (at a little bit of an angle) in each side of your cut triangle and each outside edge at the top end of your legs. Then, attach each leg with a screw, going slowly so you don't split the wood.

Step 6: Attach bottom ring

Place your bottom ring into the cable clips and press the clips in with your finger to hold them in place.

Step 7: Assemble lamp kit

Follow the instructions on the package of the lamp kit to attach it to your tripod lamp.

I had the bottom of the 6 inch nipple pretty far down to add detail in the finished product. It will depend on your lamp shade, but you want the lamp shade to just cover the wood triangle part at the top.

Step 8: Stain lamp legs (optional)

I rubbed a coat of teak oil on my legs just to bring out the natural color of the wood a little bit. I really liked the natural color though so I didn't stain them. Plus I like the contrast of the wood tones when it's next to the rustic floating shelves that we built.

Step 9: Add a shade and you are done!

So here she is in all her beauty! I love the simple details that the metal brings and may I just say this tripod lamp looks perfect against the subtle pattern of the DIY Sharpie Wallpaper!

I made a DIY lamp shade using a kit so I could use my own fabric to add some color to the room.