For years we’ve wanted to have pendant lights in our kitchen. We’ve had these eyeball lights up in the cathedral ceiling of our kitchen and they were pretty ugly. They were turning yellow with age and didn’t have much ambiance to the room.

We recently painted our entire open-concept room with the kitchen, eating area and living room. We painted the ceiling, which meant we also cleaned and painted the eyeball lights. But we didn’t do this with the lights over the island.

Several months back I found a couple minnow traps during a dumpster dive in a roll-away behind an office building while picking up a desk, from which I made some end tables.

I figured out the minnow trap came apart and started planning out how to the use the two parts as a shade for pendants lights. I found a product at The Home Depot that is a generic conversion kit of a recessed light to a pendant light.

I had to cut the wire on the minnow traps to accommodate the new light kit, and with some finagling, was able to make it work on both pendants. I had to adjust the hanging wire in order for them to be the same height.

One of the things I like about the product I bought is the large pieces that cover the hole up at the ceiling. They are a decent size but not so large they are obtrusive. And they press up against the ceiling really well when tightened. You can see this in the pictures.

We put in some LED light bulbs that looked like Edison lights to give it an old-timey feel to them. The result ended up adding a lot of flavor to the new look and feel of our freshly painted room.