I hated the lamps in our bedroom.
Seriously, they’re older than me. And what’s up with the crimpy lamp shades? They were hand-me-downs from my parents, and we were even convinced for almost three years that one of the lamps (the one on Mike’s side of the bed) was broken. We kept it there for three years without turning it on once because we thought it was broken. I never thought to investigate into it.
It wasn’t broken, it just needed a new bulb.
Anyway, I was SO ready to toss them. I wanted epic lamps. We have a pretty big bed, so I thought epic lamps were in order.
Turns out, epic lamps are epically expensive. So I was looking on macys.com for new lamps since we still have some $$ on our Macy’s gift cards from our wedding. I found a lamp that I thought would be just lovely, and it was on the low end of the price-spectrum.
But $160 for two lamps took up a big chunk of that Macy’s card, and I’ve been trying to angle for a new purse from Mr. Socks, so I took a look at those old lamps and realized they had somewhat similar qualities to the lamp from Macy’s. No, they weren’t as tall and elegant, but if they were white, wouldn’t they look kinda similar?
So I went to Home Depot by myself (for some reason, this makes me proud), got a couple of new lampshades and some white semi-gloss spray paint, laid our paint sheets on the floor of the garage, and went to town.
I realize that it looks like I’m about to chuck this at Mike’s face, but I was really just shaking the can vigorously.
It actually took quite a few more coats than I thought it would. Maybe it was because some of it was metal and the other part was wood that I didn’t bother sanding down? Whatevs, I didn’t have the patience for that.
I also sprayed the electrical cord:
(Note to self–wear sneakers for chrissakes when you spray pant. Seriously, I’m so stupid sometimes)
And after about 4 solid coats, it looked great!
The lamp shades I bought were a different kind than the lamp originally required, so I had to take the lamp “harp” off of the lamp–this piece:
To remove it from a lamp, slide those two cylindrical pieces at the bottom up, then squeeze the harp and pull out. It should be pretty simple.
Once I removed the harp, I put the lamp shade on (it didn’t fit exactly and wobbles a bit, but the world isn’t perfect) and screwed in the bulb!
Wanna see?
And what’s a renovation without a before/after shot?
Yayy! It isn’t from the 70′s anymore! It’s modern and much nicer! It surprisingly gives off more light than the old lamp shade did–I was expecting less since it’s black, but because the shade is open at the top, more light gets through!
Plus, it just looks SO much better, right? I can’t believe I waited so long to do something so simple!
Have you waited an unnecessary amount of time to update something that turned out to be the easiest thing ever?
){kind=link}