Wednesday, November 21, 2007

WFMW: Spray Paint

One of the things that shocked me when we bought this house was how expensive lamps can be. We had always lived in apartments with ample overhead lighting. When we moved into this house (with its 6 overhead lights, two in the bathrooms, two in the hallways, one in the kitchen, and one in the dining room), we had to buy a bunch of lamps.

I'm fortunate that I don't like super-ornate lamps (or anything for that matter - I like things simple and masculine, mission style, etc.), but even the plain ones cost a fortune. I didn't want those college-dorm torchieres, either. What's a girl to do?

Here's what I did. I hit up the family (and local garage sales) for lamps with good shapes. I got two avocado green lamps from Aunt Juile, and two mauve ones from Mom. I got two off-white ones at a garage sale. Then I hit the spray paint aisle of Wally World.

It took me longer to buy the spray paint than it did to paint the lamps. When Julie came down to visit, she didn't even recognize her lamps (and I could totally tell that she wouldn't have given them to me if she'd thought of painting them, first!). I just finished the mauve ones to go in our new chocolate brown and blue bedroom. I think they're going to look fabulous. New shades help, too.

So there's my tip (that I can share, now that I have enough lamps!!) - get cheap or free lamps, spray paint them, buy new shades, and save hundreds of dollars.

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Thanks for stopping by! Hope to see you again soon!

Visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer for more WFMW tips!

4 comments:

Mandy said...

I have two lamps I need to try this on. That's a great way to give something a new look!

Unknown said...

Great tip.
I'm going to try it.

Thanks a lot!

Feel welcome to visit me at:

Laane on the World

Happy Thanksgiving!

Anonymous said...

I have an ugly pair of lamps in my garage. Guess what I'm doing Saturday?

Upward Falling Autumn said...

I looked EVERYWHERE (new & used) for lamps that I liked and couldn't find anything anywhere. So I finally made it to the Goodwill where I found THREE perfect spindle lamps. Only problem was that they were powder blue... and I'm deathly allergic to powder blue. So I spray painted them white and topped them with fun (clearance!) shades from Target - VIOLA! The whole thing wound up costing me about $20 - lamps, shades + paint.

I actually just moved & the white color doesn't fly anymore, so I just bought new shades and I'm painting the bases again this weekend. When it's easy to paint them once, you don't feel bad about doing it again! :)