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We Made It Through Hurricane Helene!

As many of you know, Hurricane Helene tore through the Chimney Rock Village and Lake Lure leaving behind significant damage in its aftermath. We are humbled and incredibly grateful to let you know we escaped with only minor water damage and that our shop, The Rustic Lamp is still standing.

While much of the village faced severe flooding, downed trees and damage to other shops we feel incredibly lucky that our little shop managed to weather the storm with only minor flood damage. Here are some pictures of how devastating the river was during the hurricane.

Damage to our shop

The shop sustained minor flooding with water level reaching about 24″. Currently we have removed the sheet rock around the perimeter of the interior of the shop and are preparing to repair it along with the electrical. Luckily, our inventory of lamps were sitting well above water level at the time, sparing almost all our lamps.

The Chimney Rock Village

While experts are still assessing the full extent of the damage, it’s clear that the road to recovery will be challenging. The storm didn’t just damage buildings; it disrupted the ecosystem of the town and took away the charm that draws tourism from all over. With roads washed out, bridges destroyed, downed power lines and debris scattered across the village, it’s going to take a significant amount of time restore the charm the village once had.

At this point in time the village has been classified as a no travel zone until reconstruction has been complete. There are no formal ETA’s on when tourism can return to the village, however we assume it would be at least a year.

Hurricane Helene Chimney Rock Village Gem Mine
Chimney Rock Village Gem Mine

In The Face Of Adversity

In an incredible show of support, the Tryon International Equestrian Center, located a short drive away, has extended a lifeline to Chimney Rock’s small businesses. They offered local shop owners to setup small booths at the center, giving us and others a chance to continue reaching customers. The initiative has been a godsend for many of us as it allows us to make ends meet while the village rebuilds.

Come see us Thursday through Saturday, 10am – 5pm.

Our booth at the Tryon International Equestrian Center
Tryon International Equestrian Center

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Custom Designed Handcrafted Lamp Shades

Custom Pine Cone design rustic lamp shade. Sits on a red cedar base, shade is made of copper

Lets face it, having only a handful of designs we sell potentially limits the imagination of what we offer. However, this is not the case! Why? Well, when you purchase our lamps you are purchasing straight from the manufacturer. No middle men involved.

Take for example, Sue from New York purchased two log based lamps with Evergreen designed shades. She then wanted something a little different than our standard designs, a Pine Cone design. Sue contacted us and we drafted her design and then created the perfect custom designed shade for her.

Its not easy to create a custom designed handcrafted lamp shade and many people wonder how we do it. So, we figured we would make this post to show you how we create the perfect shade for you!

Learn More about your custom designed lamp shade
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Rustic Slab Lamp Bases

We are happy to offer a new style to our rustic lamp selections!

Red Cedar is native to the Carolina’s and South East. The natural beauty of the wood compliments our rustic copper lamp shades. The live edge of the slab makes for a perfect lamp base and has beautiful color characteristics with white boarders and deep red centers.

We also off Maple and Black Walnut bases. When available, these two woods are truly unique and have natural beauty of the wood grain and knots. Black Walnut is similar to cedar, where the core of the is deep brown to black, in some cases with a purple tone in them.

Learn More about them
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Custom Wolf Design Copper Lamp Shade

Copper lamp shade of wolf howling at moon. Moon is stained glass inlay. Lamp base is handcrafted from red oak, smoothed and finished.

What makes us different?

Well, its rather easy if you ask us. Its our ability to customize lamps and shades to fit your unique needs. Lets face it, it would be impossible to create standard designs that meet the needs of all of our customers, we all know this. That is why we will create a personalized shade just for you, and the best part is we don’t charge extra for it. This flexibility gives us a better understanding of our customers needs and good ideas too!

How the “Howling Wolf” design came to be. A lady walks into our Chimney Rock shop and wanted something a little different for her log cabin. She liked out standard shades, however didn’t feel any of them was just right for her. We asked her if she would like another design, which she responded she always fond of wolves. After sketching out the idea, she liked the wolf howling at the moon design. The next week, she dropped back in to pick it up.

Order your custom designed copper shade online today

Don’t feel like you have to come into our shop… That would be quite the drive for most of our online customers. If you like our lamps and shades, however really want another design, just contact us and let us know. We can sketch something up and send it back.

Just so you know, we strive to build the highest quality lamps at an affordable price. Everything you see on our site or shop is built exclusively by us, no middle man. If you do order a custom designed shade, please be patient with us, usually it will take around two weeks to get the design cut into our 12 gauge copper shades.

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Rough Cut Rustic Lamp Bases

Variety of different sized rough cut Red Oak rustic lamp bases
Rough Cut Rustic Lamp Bases

Our rustic lamps have been selling like crazy!  To keep up with popular demand, we took 75 more rough cut red oak logs out of storage.  Pictured above is 36 of the 75 we are preparing.

Pictured:

  • Top is medium bases
  • Left is our new mini bases
  • Right is our small bases.

Stages To Create Your Rustic Lamp Bases

What you see here is really the second stage of a 4 stage process that your rustic lamps go through when you buy them.  For the interested, here is a eagle eye view of what it takes to build the lamps you purchase from us:

  • Stage 1 – Using dried and aged Red Oak logs, we buck them (cut against the grain) to fashion each into the appropriate dimension for your lamp.
  • Stage 2 – Using a ban saw, we fashion the logs into a rough shape base
  • Stage 3 – Bases are then ran through a table sander to ensure smoothness and to remove burs.
  • Stage 4 – A clear coat lacquer is applied to preserve the natural beauty of the rustic lamp base.

See the finished product in our shop or check them out our rustic lamps page.  Have questions?  Just drop me an email or give me a call.  If your in the area, stop in our shop 188 Main Street, Chimney Rock NC 28720 to see these in person.

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New Horse Design Rustic Lamp Shade

Copper Rustic Lamp Shade with Stained Glass Inlay (Horse Design, Medium Sized Shade)

Hey everyone!  Have you ever visited the Tryon International Equestrian Center?  If you haven’t you probably will come September (9/11 – 923) as they will be hosting the FEI World Equestrian Games.  This is a huge event that is estimated to draw 500,000 people from over 70 countries.  Think of it like the Summer Olympics, it’s only held every four years but its specific to various equestrian activities.

With so many horse enthusiast we figured it would be best to create a new design for our rustic lamp shades.

Impressive, that’s the best word that describe the new design.  This hand drawn and cut “jumping” horse features a oversized elegant full moon with a starry sky.  Pictured, is the version with a darker patina, more or less a black stallion.  You can also get other color variations if desired, brown, teal even purple.

Our smallest size we offer this in is medium, really its due to the size of the design.  Dimensions for the shade are approximately 11″ long by 6″ wide and 8″ tall.  Larger options are available as well, just contact us and let us know what works best for your country home or log cabin.

Don’t be shy, if you like the design but need something different we can accommodate.  Everything we do is custom made, so we can custom fit this to work for your needs.  The great thing about custom requests is that it doesn’t cost more, you can still get exactly what you want at our same great prices.

We don’t just sell rustic lamp shades either, you can have this mounted on one of our red oak lamp bases too!   If your shopping for quality and uniqueness this is definitely the best route to take.  Have a look at them on our rustic table lamps page now.

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New Mini Rustic Copper Shade Lamps

We love custom requests!  So much in fact we will add this new mini rustic copper shade lamps to our product line.

Minature sized rustic copper shade lamp featuring our bear design with stained glass inlay
Miniature sized rustic copper shade lamp

A lot of our sales come from our customers needing rustic home décor that will fit that certain niche in their home.  Somethings are worth waiting for!  You could buy something on the spot and “make it work.”  But, if you can wait an extra week or two you can get exactly what you want.

Another great thing about custom orders, it helps us get an idea of what our customers need.  Like this one, it looked so wonderful that we couldn’t help but add it to our product line for our table lamps.  It’s great for you too, now when you stop in our shop you can purchase these on the spot and skip the wait.

Product description for the new line of mini copper shade lamps:

  • These are made with the same great quality copper as our normal shades, they are just a little smaller.  These shades will be around 7″ tall.
  • The base is shorter than our others, we like to think of them as “stumpy.”  Coming in at less than 5″ tall these can pretty much fit anywhere.
  • Thought smaller, stained glass included really makes the lamp pop at first impression!
  • It’s going to be a real bargain too, coming in at less than $90.

Give us a few weeks to build more of these small but elegant lamps.  Once we build up our inventory we will add these to the site!  If your local or feel like swinging in our shop at 188 Main Street in the Chimney Rock Village, you can buy one earlier.

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New Decorative Night Light Designs

Bear and Bat Copper Shade Decorative Night Light designs

We always like adding new designs to our products!

One of our most popular designs is the sitting bear which until now was only available on our copper lamp shades.  We didn’t think it was right to not have these included in our top selling item, night lights.  If your looking for something a little larger, stop by and check out our table lamps which feature the sitting bear design and come with optional stained glass inlays.

Being just minutes from Bat Cave, we thought it was only appropriate to include a bat design.  These are in limited supply so don’t wait, visit our shop and get one today!

Like always, these night lights designs are hand drawn and cut from high quality 12 gauge copper.

What are you waiting for, get our new decorative night lights today!  And don’t forget to use our 10% off coupon code “honor” at checkout!

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Hand Braided Rugs

Various Colored Hand Stitched Crochet Rugs

Hand Braided Rugs made in the Appalachian Mountains!

Hey everyone, these are one of the top items we sell at our shop.  Before today, these were only available at our shop in Chimney Rock, NC.  We figured it might not be feasible for you to travel given everyone busy schedule, so we now offer our crochet rugs on our online shop. 

These make for a great area rug to warm up your hardwood or tile floors.  They look great in cabins too!

As always, you can rest assured that all of our products are hand crafted.  These are braided by my wife actually!  Due to the time it takes to create these decorative floor coverings they are usually in limited supply.  If you are local to the area, stop in our shop to get a local discount.

So stop by our online shop today and purchase one of these great rugs. 

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Same Great Products, Just a Different Site!

Variety of Copper Shade Lamps with Oak bases pictured in our shop

New Website!

Hey everyone, our original website, Doug Bowman Galleries is being decommissioned in favor of our new secured website The Rustic Lamp User experience is important to us, which is why we felt moving was the right thing to do.  Don’t worry, all of the great products we sell are still available like before, it just looks a little different now.

In addition, we thought you might like to check out some of the other local attractions within walking distance of our shop.  So, after you done shopping with us make sure to take a look at the other awesome local attractions in Lake Lure and Chimney Rock.

Come visit our site today and tell us what you think!  And don’t forget to use the “honor” coupon at check out, which gives you 10% off your entire order.  Any one can use it, all we ask in return is for you to share your experience by leaving a review or sharing us on Facebook.

We take your experience in our shop seriously and encourage feedback.  In the end, it helps us offer a better product and experience to our customers.

New Prices!

Many of you realized that our old sites prices were different that our shop prices.  Well, we thought this was kind of confusing.  Now, all website prices are the exact same as purchasing in our shop.  In order to do this, we needed to update how we manage shipping and purchases.

Keeping it green!  We realized it was difficult for customers to keep in contact with us after their purchase.  To ensure you know how to get a hold of us we now send receipts electronically.  So, when you need to contact us or purchase other items its easy, just click on the links provided in your prior purchase