I’ll be the first to admit that I hardly did anything productive whatsoever over the Labor Day weekend. Even if it hadn’t been my birthday weekend, I still wouldn’t have done much. But the one thing I did manage to accomplish was making over this boring lamp my husband brought home from Target seven or eight years ago during our/my Arts & Crafts phase.
It’s a perfectly decent lamp, but with that whole “everything’s brown” issue I’ve been dealing with, it quickly became the first to fall victim to Mel and her trusty can of spray paint.
Yesterday I dedicated a good whole hour of my time to giving the thing a new look. Cleaned and free of dust, I took it outside and set up shop on the front porch (because I’ve learned my lesson about spray painting inside the house). I used a black semi-gloss spray paint that double-coats with one spray. To get the desired effect (read: completely painted and not smudged up), I let it dry for about half an hour before coming back to give it one last coat. And although I had bought a can of clear coat, I don’t think I’ll be needing it.
So after letting it dry for the rest of the day while I napped, by the evening I was able to top it off with the cool, simple round white shade I found on clearance at Target. The shade find, by the way, was what started this whole thing. After my husband started admiring some overpriced (for Target) glossy black lamps that we both agreed would look great in the living room, I announced—much to his horror, I assume—that I would just repaint the old one instead.
I think it turned out quite nice, if I do say so myself. As you can see there’s still a bit of brown to work around, but all of it has to stay in some capacity—the side table and bookcase in the photos, plus three other bookcases, a coffee table and another end table were all designed by me and handmade by my dad. I need a new room for this stuff.
I’ve been wanting to start making over some older pieces we’ve had for a while, and with a $10 shade and a $5 can of spray paint, and barely an hour of work, it was an easy project to start with. The old sideboard, however, is another question for another day.
Of course you realize, along with the all black sofas, all you’re doing is replacing brown with black. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I look forward to seeing what neutral you switch to in the future 😉
-s
Ha! I know. Everything else is clean white walls and white Marimekko curtains (that need to be replaced since a certain dog decided they looked tasty!), so I’ve got a good canvas to start throwing in some color! Just wait!