something old, becomes something new.

For most of my life these old lamps sat in my grandparents house. A few years ago, when my grandma bought new lamps, she gave them to my mom. My mom put them in her living room, not out of love for the lamps, but out of love for my grandma. She was never really crazy about them.

The lamps before my upcycling

  A few weeks ago I was visiting my mom and she was talking about digging her grandmother's old cherub lamps out of storage and polishing them up for her living room. She casually (I actually think she was kidding) offered me the lamps. Boy, was she surprised when I quickly said yes, because they're normally not my style. I had a vision though!

I'm currently in the process of redoing my bedroom. My college decor is still in great shape, but I'm tired of it (not to mention, it will fit nicely in my extra bedroom/office!) and I'd like something a little more grown up. I've focusing on whites, golds and coral, while keeping my black furniture.

college bedroom decor

I definitely wanted to go with gold for these lamps. So I bought Krylon Paint + Primer Gold Metallic paint and I taped off the hole for the bulb with painter's tape. I also wound up the cord and put a grocery bag around them and covered the exposed part of the cord. I rigged up a paint spot outside my house and got to paintin'

It actually took a lot more paint than I thought it would. Part of that might have been because it was windy, but I used almost a whole can of spray paint on them. After I had them well covered I sprayed on a coast of acrylic sealer in hopes of letting them last a long time without getting scratched or scuffed up.

I just bought cheap white shades from Wal-Mart, I'm thinking of dressing them up with white stitched ribbon on the top and bottom.They're definitely not perfect up close, but they look pretty nice on my black nightstands, best off all, they were free. Lamps this size cost 20-30 bucks, even from Wal-Mart! Grandma's old lamps, just got a whole new life!