DIY Modern Asymmetrical Brass Branch Light
Some of you may not be aware of this issue, but for those of us who experience it, an off-centered bathroom vanity light fixture is a significant problem. It is an ugly and builder-grade fixture that affects the overall appearance of the bathroom.
The lighting fixture above our bathroom mirror was not centered, which is unnerving and annoying. (I recognize other world problems are more pressing, but this is one I can resolve. And so I press on.)
To install a supported electrical box in the wall, I chose to create an asymmetrical branch lighting fixture for a modern look. It’s designed to appear slightly off-center. Here’s how you can do it as well.
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Materials Needed:
*Note: Most parts were purchased from this online seller, so item numbers are included for your convenience.
a – Four (4) 2-1/4” cup, unfinished brass (CU578)
b – Four (4) Edison porcelain keyless socket (SO10045)
c – One (1) large cluster body with three holes (two 1/8”, one 1/4″), unfinished brass (BOLG1)
d – One (1) reducer with shoulder (1/8”F, 1/4″M), unfinished brass (RE1/8FX1/4MS)
e – Two (2) tapered brass cluster body (1/8” x [2]1/8”) (BOT2)
f – Five (5) LED T10 filament light bulbs, appropriate for use in wet areas (Amazon)
g – Various lengths of 1/8” brass pipe with male threaded ends (lengths used: 7”, 5”, 3×4”, 3”, 2.5”, 3×2”)
h – Three (3) adjustable friction swivel joints (SV140)
I. Polished satin brass ceiling canopy from etsy (SnakeHeadVintage)
II. Four straight slip rings with set screw, unfinished brass (SRS0-3/8)
III. Dual to standard screw light holder adapter, black (Amazon)
IV. Sketch of desired light fixture, including pipe lengths and general layout
V. Not shown: 6’ strands of 18/2 gauge white and black lamp wire (Lowes)
Begin by creating a mockup of your branch light fixture. Use a 4” pipe to attach to the center hole in your large cluster.
Screw the brass reducer into the 1/4″ opening in your large cluster. This reduces the hole size for your 1/8” pipes.
This section will be installed through the ceiling canopy to your wall. It is the central hub of your lighting fixture.
Next, choose one side of your branch light to work on. Lay out the pieces you want. This is an example of what your light’s left side might look like.
These adjustable swivel joints are magical for creating branch light fixtures. You can angle them any way you like, giving the fixture an excellent abstract, random, branch-like quality.
To make them work, unscrew the screw set slightly.
Adjust the angle of the joint to your desired position (you can modify it later when adding your pieces).
Tighten the screw to set the joint.
Screw the pipes onto the adjustable swivel joint, and voila! An excellently awkward-looking elbow. Abstract magic, really.
As you progress with the wiring of your light, you’ll work more with these porcelain sockets. For now, loosely attach the metal base to the socket and use a small flat screwdriver to tighten the screws from the inside.
Now the base and socket are combined, so you won’t lose them.
Whenever working on the end of a branch, the layout involves a porcelain socket, a brass cup, a slip ring, and a pipe.
Screw the pipe onto the base of the socket. (Don’t overtighten.)
To make sure the brass cup covers the porcelain socket, slide it up from the open end of the pipe.
The brass cup is loose and needs to be secured.
To hold the brass cup, use the slip ring with set screw. It’s an important component of light fixture construction.
To begin, use an allen wrench to loosen the set screw. Be sure not to loosen it completely, as the inside end of the set screw should be flush with the inside rim of the slip ring. This will allow you to easily slide the slip ring on and off of pipes.
Slide the slip ring onto your pipe near the base of the brass cup, so the cup is held tightly between the porcelain socket base and the slip ring.
Tighten the set screw. This secures everything in place, even when upside-down.
To use your dual standard light holder adapter, prepare the porcelain socket as if you are screwing in a single light bulb, but instead screw in the adapter. Then add two lights to your adapter. Done.
Put the light together in the best way for your space. This is the configuration used for this example, but feel free to get creative and do what you like.
My light mount location (on the wall) is close to the adjacent wall on Branch 1’s side, making Branch 1 shorter than Branch 2.
These branches and sub-branches are labeled for reference.
At my home improvement store, 18-gauge lamp wire is only sold as double wire. You want to use single white and black wire. So carefully snip the end of the connecting casing right down the middle.
Pull the wires apart. Repeat for the black lamp wire. You should now have four 6′ sections of wire (two white, two black).
When installing this light, you have two options for how to start the wiring. You can begin at the wall mount and work outward, or you can start at the sockets and work inward. Both methods present their own wiring challenge, but don’t worry, they are not difficult to overcome. Wiring toward the wall presents a challenge at the cluster body, while wiring away from the wall presents a challenge at the socket.
Now let’s begin. Cut two white and two black wires, each measuring about 12 inches. These wires will be used to connect the wall wires to the lamp wires.
These 1/8” brass pipes will fit the four 18-gauge wires. Thread all four wires through the 4” pipe that will lead from the wall to the cluster body. Only pull wire out about 2” from the cluster body, and leave the rest hanging.
Here’s a lesson on exposing wire ends by removing the surrounding casing. Find the 18 AWG stranded hole on your wire cutters (because you’re working with stranded wire. If your wire was solid, you’d use the solid hole) and place your wire about 3/4″ from the end.
Spin the wire (or the wire cutters) to ensure a solid cut of the casing all around.
Keeping the wire cutters clamped around your wire, gently pull them toward the end. This will remove the casing, leaving the end exposed and ready to work with.
One of the black wall pipe wires should be taken. Leave the other three wall pipe wires alone for now. Take one end each of two other lengths of black wire. Make sure these lengths are cut to be about 8”-10” longer than the branch they will belong to, from the cluster body to the porcelain socket.
Remove the casing to expose about 3/4″ of wire at the ends.
Grab wire nuts that fit three 18-gauge wires.
Twist the three wires together in a clockwise direction. Before doing this, give each wire a quick twist to keep the strands together.
Add the wire nut. Make sure all three wires are secured within the wire nut; if they’re not, unscrew the wire nut and redo it.
Repeat these steps for the other three wires from the wall mount pipe – each wire should be connected to two wires of the same color (and appropriate length for the branch) with a wire nut. There should now be eight wires coming out of the cluster body. Secure and insulate the wire nut openings with black electrical tape.
We will start on Branch 1. Attach the horizontal pipe to the cluster body, then pull the four Branch 1 wires through this pipe (two black, two white). Be careful to keep the wires aligned and not twisted up in each other, or you’ll have to thread them through again because twisted wires are inefficient in their use of space, and that cluster body will be a tight fit for all those wires and wire nuts.
Screw the other end of the cluster body onto the first pipe of Branch 2, and thread the Branch 2 wires through, ensuring that they are aligned evenly and not twisted with each other from the wire nut outward.
Pull the cluster body wall (with Branch 2 pipe connected) close to the cluster body. Arrange the wires and wire nuts into the cluster body carefully. Counter-twist the cluster body wall about three rotations, then thread it onto the cluster body.
This counter-twist movement will initially twist the wires, but as you screw on the cluster body wall, the wires will “untwist” and lay straight inside the cluster body.
Being gentle is essential so you don’t kink the wires, but you can use the counter-twist strategy whenever wires are tightly packed into a piece that will be screwed onto another piece.
At this point, the first pipes of Branches 1 and 2 should be attached to the cluster body, with all wires appropriately sized and neatly sticking out from their respective pipe ends.
To assemble your branch light, start by piecing it together according to your mockup. Avoid taking it apart entirely and reassembling it, as this can lead to confusion. Instead, attach sets of joints and pipes together and thread wires through them in one go, rather than repeating the process three times for each individual piece.
When you reach an elbow joint, follow these steps: Unscrew the screw from the joint, being careful not to lose the spring or spacer pieces. Set aside the screw, spring, and top half of the joint.
Thread wires through the base of the elbow joint, making sure they are straight and untwisted.
Screw the elbow joint base onto the pipe by counter-twisting the wires in the opposite direction, then screw it on clockwise to relieve the temporary twist and make them lie flat.
Separate the wires to run on either side of the screw hole. These elbow joints fit all four wires, if necessary.
Place the top half of the joint on the base half, aligning the screw holes. Set the spring on the hole, and re-set the screw.
Tighten the screw to hold the elbow at the desired angle, or slightly loosen it to adjust the angle as needed.
When you reach the end of your branch, thread a loosened slip ring onto the final pipe along with a brass cup with the opening facing the socket. Wires should already be threaded and pulled through the final pipe and sticking out the end.
Next, separate the base of the socket from the socket itself by unscrewing the two small screws from inside.
Thread the wires through the base and twist the metal socket onto the final pipe.
Your final pipe might look something like this, with the slip ring and brass cup floating along on the pipe.
Here’s where we are: attaching the base of each socket to the end pipe of each sub-branch.
When attaching bases, trim the white and black wires from the socket base to 1-1/2” to 2” long.
This cut is tricky; the wires should be long enough to attach them to the socket, but short enough for the socket to fit onto the base. Keep in mind that you can’t lengthen the cut wire, so if you make a mistake, it’s better to have it slightly too long.
Twist the strands clockwise, then form a hook shape with the exposed wires.
Hook the wire onto the correct screw: black wire hooks onto gold screw, white wire hooks onto silver. Hook them left to right, open end clockwise. Tighten screw, keep wires secure.
Don’t hesitate to redo for perfect connection.
Repeat the process for the white wire and silver screw. Ensure that the wire strands are properly contained and that there is no overlap between the black and white wires.
Attach the socket to the socket base using the two small screws inside the socket. Repeat for all other sockets on the brass branch light.
Pull each brass cup over its porcelain socket, and slide the slip ring up to secure the brass cup in place. Tighten the set screw with the allen wrench.
You can now mount your beautiful asymmetric brass branch light on the wall.
Before proceeding, make sure to turn off the breaker switch. It is important to ensure that there is no electricity flowing to the bathroom light before beginning the removal process. Once you have confirmed this, remove both the old fixture and the metal mounting plate. While typically the mounting plate would not need to be taken off, in this case we need to attach our brass pipe to it.
To prevent the fixture from twisting on the wall, it is recommended to remove the plate and screw it onto the fixture instead.
Slide the brass canopy over the wires and onto the mounting pipe.
Screw the metal mounting plate onto the pipe threads once you reach the pipe.
Trim the casings off protruding wires to expose about 3/4″ of wire. Twist the strands clockwise to keep them controlled.
Have someone hold the light fixture next to the wall while you twist the white wires together.
Twist the wires together clockwise so that when you add the wire nut, it securely fastens them.
Securely attach the wire nut, ensuring that all wire strands are fully enclosed within it.
Secure the wire nut opening with electrical tape. Repeat for the black wires.
After wiring your lighting fixture, reattach the metal mounting plate to the electrical box in the wall.
Connect the wall’s ground wire to the metal mounting plate’s green grounding screw. Tighten the screw.
Install LED lightbulbs in your bathroom. These bulbs are moisture-resistant, making them ideal for bathrooms.
If your previous light’s canopy was larger than this one, you’ll need to refinish and paint the area behind the canopy before attaching it to the wall. Go ahead and do that now. Or, if you’re an all-star, maybe you’d already thought to do that.
Gold star.
You might want to keep a flat screwdriver handy as you double-check the positioning of your light. After achieving a beautiful abstract look, it is important to ensure that the light is free from any potentially moving parts.
In this case, the mirror is a cupboard door, so one bulb had to be double-checked for spacing.
Fortunately, there’s more room than what this photo shows between the lightbulb and the mirror. But if there wasn’t, it would be easy to adjust the elbow joint angle.
Flip the electrical breaker back on. It’s wonderful!
This small master bathroom is undergoing remodeling and redecoration, but the asymmetrical light adds a beautiful touch of sophistication. (Plus, the chic DIY brass toilet paper holder.)
I appreciate the beautiful interplay between the elegant brass and the dark walls in this space (Wall color: Benjamin Moore’s Licorice).
I’m gratified that the fixture no longer looks off-centered. If it does, it looks intentionally off-centered in a unique, abstract, and organically branch-ful way.
We hope you enjoy creating your own asymmetrical brass branch light for your bathroom or any space. (Here’s a similar project involving an abstract brass chandelier for an entryway, if you’re interested.) Happy DIYing!
Hello there!
I’m Kevin Brown, a dedicated home master and the creative mind behind rentcheck.me. My journey began with a passion for ensuring homes are not just structures but sanctuaries that reflect comfort, safety, and happiness.
With years of experience in property management and a keen eye for detail, I’ve developed rentcheck.me as a resourceful platform aimed at helping individuals navigate the complexities of renting properties.
Whether you’re a tenant seeking your next home or a landlord aiming to streamline your rental process, my goal is to equip you with the knowledge, tools, and insights needed to make informed decisions. Welcome to my world, where every checkmark means a step closer to finding or creating your ideal home!