Local lamp business lights up
“I’ve always had an obsession with old stuff,” says James Long.
Which is an understatement, to be sure. Long and his wife Carissa live in a 19th-century shotgun house in the Sixth Ward. It’s filled with vintage instruments, World War II medical equipment and an antique film projector. In the kitchen, below a historic map of Houston, the dining table has been transformed into a workspace where Long builds gorgeous, vintage-inspired lights for their growing design company, Long Made Co.
Long Made started when Carissa wanted new lamps for their bedside tables. The scissor-arm version that James built was such a success that he put it on eBay, where it sold for $300. So he decided to make another for the site a few weeks later, and soon went to selling one a week. When the Longs added an online store on the vintage/craft site Etsy, sales multiplied. “He’s naturally very creative. He’s always tinkering with something, building something, fixing something, painting something,” said Carissa. “We joke that he’s like MacGyver.”
Since 2012, Long Made’s in-demand wares have expanded from the original wall-mounted scissor lamp design with bare-bulb Edison lamps, pendant lights and adjustable-arm floor lamps inspired by O.C. White designs in brushed brass and antiqued steel. Each marries sleek modern lines with the utilitarian essence of the machine age for an industrial look that’s also very current.
Last year, Long handmade more than 600 light fixtures, with most heading to design centers such as San Francisco, Brooklyn and London. One location that’s still waiting for a lamp? The Longs’ bedside table.
“Two years have gone by, and I’m still waiting,” said Carissa. “We still have crappy Ikea lamps.”