Thursday, December 18, 2008

Spray paint your lampshades. What!?!?!


First I have a confession to make. I am a serial night photographer. I cannot seem to take pictures during the day what with a 4.5 year old and 18 mo. old pulling on me demanding sippy cup refills and playdates and yogurt covered raisins. So after my chickadees are in bed, I secretly take pictures. {Oh, this sounds so ominous. It's totally not like that. I'm photographing lamps for pete's sake.}
In my recent "everything must be black" phase, I decided that some gold lampshades a friend had given me {notice how I never say no to taking other's castoffs and that I use lots of parentheses?} MUST be black. Now.

Now your average Joe {or Sue} would have gone to the craft store, researched fabric paints, paitently painted their shade, yadda yadda yadda. Actually, they would have gone and bought a black shade. Not me. I went out to my garage at 11:00 pm, killed a cricket on the way, and spray painted my shades. I am *super* impatient so I think if I would have done several thin coats it may have been more even in it's coverage. However, I only use these lamps occasionally as accent lighting {they're there more just to look cute} so I don't care. Just being honest.
Part of the "spottiness" is the other lights in the room and my bad photography, so don't think it's such a terrible thing. It's totally not as spotty as it looks! It actually works. It makes your fabric a little stiff to the touch, but how often do you touch your lampshades? Maybe you have a shade that is the right shape and scale for a lamp but the wrong color and you don't want to spend $25 on a new one? Spraypaint it! Then add a little pom-pom fringe with your hot glue gun and wha-la. Instant cuteness.


If you had any doubts I loved you, now you will know for sure I do. I just went in my master bedroom, turned on the light, told my husband {who was in bed} to remove his water glass from his night stand {which I stole the runner off of earlier and have yet to replace so excuse the shabby top} and snapped a picture. He thinks I'm deranged. Hhhmmmmm. All so you can see another spray painted shade on a different base. This one is sans fringe cuz hubby wasn't really diggin' that too much. What, a grown man doesn't want pom-pom fringe on his bedside lamp? The nerve!



P.S. Is it a design "no-no" to have two lamps so close to one another? To the left of this little sitting area is my girls' play area and I don't want them knockin' over the lamps. So they're shoved in by the seating area. Just felt the need to explain that.

3 comments:

Wendy said...

I understand the impatient thing...I'm the same way...when I want something done, I have to do it yesterday! Great job on the lamps!

Kasey said...

I think it turned out just perfect!
k-

Christi said...

I know this is an old post, but I just found your blog today & I'm enjoying reading back through your archives.

Your "style" is also mine, and I've never known quite how to phrase it. So thanks for that!

Anyway, I have several spraypainted lampshades, and they look great. My mother-in-law did mine for me, and she always remembers to paint the inside as well (something I'm sure I would just skip over). No spotiness!

So glad to have found someone else who believes spraypaint works on anything!