Apparently this is my winter for lamp make-overs!
Last month I painted a stained lampshade to update a pretty blue canning jar lamp and today I chalk painted and waxed two out-of-date 1960’s brass lamp bases. My bedroom lamps are not old enough to qualify for vintage but they are certainly not new either.
Here is the “before” shiny brass lamp with its old pleated shade.
The pleated shades are quite dated and because they are a light weight fabric and pleated they collect dust and are a pain to keep vacuumed.
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Both lamps bases before the recent make-over.
I have been looking at new lamps at Home Depot and on the Internet and I fell in love with this wooden artisan-shape lampbase (which I would have painted or more likely washed using my watered down green chalk paint.) But when I realized each lamp cost $125.00 plus shipping and that I needed two of them I knew new lamps were not going to be in my current budget.
And besides I don’t want my lamps to look too matchy-matchy, right?
A Kathy Ireland designed lamp with the look of a hand-turned base. So pretty.
So instead I bought two new lampshades at Home Depot at $19.95 each and painted the lampbases I already had. I would have preferred a drum-shaped style shade but the size I needed did not come in that shape. I also needed a shade large enough and deep enough to cover up the brass screw in the lightbulb part so this was the only shade that actually fit my older style lamps.
A close up of the shiny brass look that was popular in the 70’s & 80’s.
My choice of shades colors was a bit limited but these marbled tan shades will do the trick and will certainly freshen up our bookshelf headboard and provide some nice contrast of the dark green paint against our medium green painted wall.
Left lamp based painted right hand side base painted and waxed.
I crawl into bed early every night to read and wind down so these lamps get quite a workout in my home.
- MY STEP BY STEP:
- I started off by washing the bases well to remove any dust or gunk that might have settled there over the past few decades.
- Then I brushed on the Ce Ce Caldwell’s Michigan Pine chalk paint just covering them with one coat because I wanted some small bits of brass to show through for contrast.
- Then I waxed each base using Ce Ce Caldwell’s Aging Wax using a rag to apply the wax because my waxing brush was too stiff to get the wax into the cracks and crevices. See more information here; http://www.cececaldwells.com
I was torn between waxing and not waxing because I like them both ways so I sat with them a few days until I made up my mind.
The painted lamps bases in process in my kitchen.
Finally I waxed them both and this Ce Ce Caldwell’s wax took forever to dry. I’m not at all sure I like that slow-drying trait. It took the wax longer to dry than the chalk paint itself which dries in less than an hour!
I put on the new shades, took a few photographs and put them into place in my bedroom. This project was very easy to do and only took me one day (except for the wax drying which took more than a week) so my “satisfaction rating” is high. LOL!
This is budget-based decorating at its best!
Do you have any lamp bases or shades you might like to paint?
Small House Big Sky Homesteader, Donna
Small House Big Sky Homestead 