our havenhurst haven: Lamp Makeover

Yesterday was my birthday and it was an incredible day! I received Facebook birthday wishes & drank a lot of this…

Special deliveries from awesome neighbors….

And ended the day with dinner, cake & ice cream with the family!

One of the other highlights was I finished up a project that has been hanging around for a couple of weeks. I found this floor lamp at a moving sale.

The base is heavy duty (well-built), three-way bulb wired and a great shape. It had been marked down to half price so at $10 it was a steal. A few of the “problems” were the mustard yellow paint with faux antiquing over the top. The shade had been hand painted in a landscape scene that just isn’t quite my style plus it was in pretty rough shape. Nothing a little spray paint and fabric couldn’t help. Bob got right on it and painted the base for me in Rustoleum Colonel Red - gloss. The color grabs your attention and our entry needed a pop of color for sure!

Then my part started in the hunt for a new shade. The original is 16 inches in height which is pretty big. I checked all the usual suspects Target, Wal-Mart & Menards and the largest I could find was 13.5 inches which was just too small. All shades online in that size were going to run at least $50 which is just not in the budget for my $10 lamp.

Then yesterday I decided just to go to JoAnn’s to look for material and started rethinking using the old shade. I plugged the address into the GPS because I didn’t know where JoAnn’s was actually located. It usually drives me crazy when the GPS takes me on a wild goose chase but yesterday God was smiling on me (remember it WAS my birthday) and the wacky route the GPS had me take took me right by a thrift store that is closing and had everything marked down 50%. It was almost too good to be true when I spotted this lampshade for only $1.85!!

It isn’t exactly beautiful but I knew I was going to cover it anyway and it was 17 inches tall. With the shade and a few other goodies loaded into the van I headed on to JoAnn’s. There I found the perfect material discounted by 25% so the $9.99 a yard was only $7.25.

Once home I covered the lamp with the material using “magic in a can” and attaching ribbon on the rough edges to give it a more finished look.

If I were to do it again I would be more conscious of the seams of the lamp, material and ribbon matching up so I didn’t need to try to hide so many seams in the back but overall I love it!