This is what I meant to post last week. =P
When my husband and I got married, we really couldn’t afford a lot so we got a lot of hand-me-downs from relatives. One of them was a lamp from my grandmother. A very, very old lamp. It had a metal base that, frankly, needed cleaned and painted (my grandmother is a heavy smoker). Even though I can now afford to buy a new lamp…I just can’t bring myself to throw this one out. So I decided to just paint it to match the current color scheme of my living room. The lazy way.
You will need:
- paint brushes (multiple sizes, depending on whether or not your lamp has tiny crevices)
- acrylic paint (your choice of color–I went with Apple Barrel’s Tuscan Red and Vanilla Ice Cream)
- primer (probably…I didn’t use any, which was probably stupid…we’ll see how it goes)
Here is the lamp before the process:
I don’t know what it was about the reflective surface that made my end table feel so cluttered, but something needed a change. So I got my paint and went to work!
Step 01: The lamp has been collecting a lot of dust, so I cleaned it. (Ignore the background. I didn’t feel like cleaning the counter off, so I taped up paper…stupid idea).
Step 02: I put some paint on a candle lid I wasn’t using. Here’s the color I picked:
Step 03: As a test, to see how it would look on the metal (and without a primer), I painted the thing on the top that screws the shade onto the base of the lamp (no idea what it’s called.
It dried nicely and, when rubbed, didn’t come off…so I went ahead with the rest of the lamp.
It required about 4-6 coats.
Step 04: After the Tuscan Red paint dried, I painted the neck (that white part at the top of the picture). I know it doesn’t look like it needs painted, but it actually was very grungy and yellowed. I used Apple Barrel’s Vanilla Ice Cream.
This is the end result. Despite some flaws, I’m really happy with the results. And the solid, matte color makes the end table seem much less cluttered for some reason. I haven’t figure out why that is.
What do you think?
ETA: It’s been about two weeks since I did this project, actually, and the paint is fine. So far, a primer doesn’t seem to have been necessary. But the lamp also doesn’t get handled much. Just in case you were wondering. =) If the paint starts to wear or chip off, I will immediately let you know.