Let there be a $7.00 light

Years ago, my brother off-loaded this lamp from his old dorm room on me.

I tried selling it on Kijiji last year for $10, but nobody was interested. So when I wanted a new lamp for the loft, I decided to see what I could do with this old lamp. I started off by trying out a shade that I had lying around.

Hmmmmm, not too bad, actually! But it looked a bit squat. So I took a taller harp off another lamp and put it on this lamp.

Yep, that did the trick! Now for the base – I did a bit of research and discovered that yes, you CAN paint ceramic. I already had cans of primer, purple paint, and spray gloss. I just had to pick up a can of spray adhesive to complete the lamp makeover.

I wanted to take the harp & socket off, but the base of the lamp is sealed. Taping it all off would have been a pain, so I Saran Wrapped it! Just needed to tape off the base of the socket and the plug cord.

I set up a little spray booth with a piece of cardboard and did a few light coats of primer (sorry about the blurry picture).

Then I sprayed a few light coats of purple and finished it off with a few light coats of the clear gloss. It was still drying when I took this picture, but the final finish looks just like the original ceramic finish.

Now what to do with the lamp shade... I wanted something more fun that plain white. I had bought this funky purple leopard print fabric from JoAnn a few years ago for a project that I never got around to doing (typical!).

There was just enough to cover the shade. Now, if I was a patient and meticulous person, I would have cut the fabric to the right shape and size to fit the shade with minimal overhang. But I’m more of a just-get-in-there-and-do-it kind of person, so I took the lampshade outside and went crazy with the spray adhesive and the unwieldy piece of fabric. I don’t have pictured of this step, because my fingers were covered with glue and I didn’t think it would be a good idea to touch my camera with gluey fingers. But after lots of positioning and re-positioning and a few bad words, I managed to get the shade covered. There are some bubbles here and there and the seam where the end of the fabric meet is pretty rough, but it’s easy enough to hide it in the back :-)

And here’s how the lamp turned out.

And the total cost – about $7.00 for the can of spray adhesive with a 40% off coupon at Michaels. Not too bad for a boring old unwanted dorm room lamp :-)

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