How To - DIY Wood Bowl Pendant

December 2, 2025 Meggan Wynja

DIY Wood Light Fixture

In this How-To DIY wood light fixture tutorial, we’ll show you how to turn a wood bowl into a single-port pendant light fixture. You don’t need many parts and materials to create a fabulous, custom design that looks great above a coffee table in your dining room or the reading nook in your bedroom. Check out this DIY wood pendant light guide for a complete list of materials and step-by-step instructions.

Materials

Some of the materials for this DIY wood light fixture, we recommend that you buy directly from the Color Cord Company to ensure compatibility and cohesive aesthetics. These are the pieces you’ll need from us:

And here are the tools and materials you should already have at home:

Phillipshead Screwdriver
Flathead Screwdriver
Needlenose Pliers
Masking Tape
Standard Wire Strippers

Most importantly, don’t forget to find a wooden bowl!

Step-by-Step Instructions

Now it’s time to assemble this DIY wood light fixture. Read through all the instructions before starting to ensure you have the correct tools for every step.

Prep the Wooden Bowl

Remove the bottom platform on the bowl if necessary.
Locate the center of the bolt and drill through it.
Make sure to check the size of the hole with your all-thread before moving on to the next step.

Prep Your Wire

Grab a piece of masking tape and place it roughly 1 ½” from the end of the wire.
Using a blade, locate the center of the tape and rotate it two to three times around the cloth covering.
Then, pull away the PVC housing to expose the black positive, white, negative, and green ground conductor wires underneath.
Next, grab your standard wire strippers and strip about 3/16” off the conductor wires, exposing the strand of copper wires underneath.
At this point, we do recommend twisting the ends together with your fingers for a stronger contact point.

Please note, if you do not have a Color Cord 3000 to use for this DIY wood light fixture, check out our guide on How to Cut and Strip Cloth-Covered Wire for more tips.

Assemble Your DIY Wood Light Fixture

Grab your socket cap and loosen the two screws underneath the cap.
Insert the all-thread into the top of the socket cap and tighten down the smaller set screw.
Remove the set screw from the cord grip and then gently feed the cord grip over the cord from the top.
Then, add your coupler and metal washer so they sit on top of the bowl to create a finished look.
Now, send the color cord through the bowl where the socket will be wired underneath.
If you have a socket cover, put that on next.
Grab the socket cap with all-thread and feed that over the conductor wires using your needle-nose pliers.
Insert the green ground screw into the hole.
Tighten the large set screw down to finish grounding the fixture.
Take out the socket cap and socket body to attach them together.
Wire the black cord to the long metal prong and the white wire to the short prong by inserting each cord into the correct hole on the back of the socket body.
Then, snap the body onto the cap, and your socket is fully wired.
Feed the socket cap over the wired socket and pull the cord on the all-thread, so the socket cap sits flush against the bottom of the bowl.
To secure the socket in place, bring down the metal washer, attach the coupler to the stem core grip, and then thread the other side of the coupler over the all-thread sticking through the top of the wood bowl.
Grab the stem core grip set screw that was set aside earlier and tighten it back down to secure the cord.

Wiring Your DIY Wood Light Fixture to the Ceiling

On the other end of the cord from the bowl, strip off a generous amount of PVC covering and expose the conductor and stranded copper wire underneath, repeating the same steps as before.
Flip off the light switch and turn off the breaker before taking any further steps in the wiring process for this DIY wood pendant light.
Grab the canopy mount and spruce and attach it to your junction box.
Take the end of your pendant and feed the conductor wires through the bottom of the canopy until it’s at your preferred length.
Tighten down the canopy core grip set screw to secure it in place.
Now, taking a closer look at the junction box, you should see three wires: black positive, white negative, and green grounding (sometimes bare copper).
Attach the corresponding conductor wires coming from the top of your DIY wood light fixture to the wires in the junction box.
Secure together using the wire nuts and push all the wires back up into the junction box.
Attach the canopy in place with the side set screws.

All you have to do now is turn on your breaker box, screw in a light bulb, flip the switch, and enjoy.

DIY Light Fixture FAQ

Have questions about some of the basics for this DIY wood pendant light? Here are some quick answers:

How low should a pendant light hang?

Pendant lights should hang about three feet above a table or five to seven feet from the ground. The length of the cord you need will depend on the height of your ceilings. We recommend purchasing a foot more cord than you think you need to ensure you have extra cord to strip while wiring.

Do you need any additional cords to hold the DIY wood light fixture to the ceiling?

If your fixture is heavy, we recommend adding additional support for your fixture. We recommend using non-electrical options, including chains or metal tubing to carry the weight of your DIY wood pendant light.

Can you use a different material for the shade?

Of course! We love the look of a natural wooden bowl for this DIY wood light fixture, but you can use any type of bowl, including metal, ceramic, or glass. You can also explore our shade collection to find more traditional styles of shades in classic materials:

Feel free to reach out to us at info@colorcord.com! If you have any questions, we're happy to help.

Thanks for watching!

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