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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 auth...

R ecently, 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 A tlantic 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 leav...