Dress Up Your Nautical Interiors With a Nautical Chart Lampshade

Looking for an easy way to dress up and personalize your coastal/nautical interiors? Well here’s a style secret used by designers to create local interest to the finely-fitted nautical room. Replace your old lampshades with a custom-made nautical chart lampshade using a navigational chart from your local or favorite coastline. You can select from 1,000-plus U.S. coastal and Great Lakes nautical charts created and updated by NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration). Nautical chart lampshade not only create a great look to your room, but also becomes a point of conversation as you study the lighted charts, similar to viewing a terrestrial globe! Visit the NOAA site by clicking on this link to find the right nautical chart for your local waters. http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/OnLineViewer.html

Skipjack offers custom nautical lampshades constructed in our own design center located in Olde Towne Portsmouth, VA. We use only the highest quality materials including authentic NOAA navigational charts. Each shade is trimmed with a muslin-colored grosgrain ribbon and features a washer top for attachment to any standard lamp. We can duplicate the size of your existing lamp with the only limitation being the size of the navigational chart. Visit our website by clicking on this link for additional information and costs of producing your custom nautical chart lampshade. We also produce a nautical chart nightlight and offer a great selection of brass and hand-made nautical lamp finials to adorn your favorite lamps.  http://www.skipjackmarinegallery.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=SNWMG&Category_Code=LS

Click here to go to Skipjack's Nautical Living home page.

The Seed Was Sown and the Beginnings of Our Blog

Recently, a customer visited us in our Olde Towne Portsmouth, Virginia showroom shopping for light fixtures to use on the exterior of her new oceanfront home. She was searching for high quality and durable lights that could withstand the sometimes inclement Atlantic weather but also be fitting for her nautically themed façade. I showed her a selection of authentic vintage cast brass fixtures once used onboard commercial and naval ships. These are by far, hands down, the finest (and most durable) cast brass fixtures ever produced with explosion proof glass covers surrounded by a thick brass cage. These fixtures are virtually non-destructible. Our customer was not accustomed to some of the ship lighting designs, so I showed her pictures demonstrating how other customers have used them in both the interior and exterior of their homes. She was delighted and selected the 90 degree passageway lights (see pictured). The heavy brass fixtures were exactly what she was looking for.

Before leaving she commented on how difficult it had been for her to find the appropriate lights and how helpful it was having the sample pictures demonstrating how others had used them on similar applications. Her final comments were “you should really publish a book about how to use all of these great ship parts in coastal homes.”
This was by no means the first time we have heard such a comment from customers, but this time the thought stuck. Why not create a book about transforming authentic antique and vintage nautical and marine furnishings and paraphernalia into suitable products for today’s nautical interiors? This is our business and we are the experts. We are the source for these exceptional products and our business is nautical interiors. So the seed was sown and we are now at the very beginning of designing this project. In the interim, we decided to launch our literary endeavor via the use of a blog!

The premise of Skipjack’s Nautical Living blog is to demonstrate how we revitalize and transform authentic nautical wares for today’s coastal interiors and eventually we will show these products in their new environment. We will also share our thoughts with you concerning the collecting and appraising of nautical antiques and any other maritime topics that you might find interesting or you may desire to share with us.

We may also recommend that you visit our web gallery often and preview our “NEW! JUST IN” section for our latest nautical acquisitions. And of course, please stop by and visit us in person at our riverfront showroom located in Olde Towne Portsmouth, Virginia.

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