Red Light Special

I mentioned earlier in the week that I had scored some lovely priced, highly ugly lamps at Goodwill; now I'm back to show you what they look like post makeover. Just for a reminder, here's what I was working with:

Pretty, huh?! And to add to the supreme beauty of these lamps they both had a big, old sticker on the sides.

The sticky came off pretty easy. I tried to just scrub it off using Goo-Gone but that wasn't cutting it. So I saturated the area with Goo-Gone and then scraped it off. I might have used a butter knife to scrap it. The knife did the trick and I was left with a nice, smooth surface.

I got the lamps all prepped for painting out in the garage. I covered the cord and light bulb spot with aluminum foil. I can't remember where I originally saw this aluminum foil idea but it works really well. It was a lot easier to bend into all the little nooks and crannies than painter's tape would have been (easier to remove too). To allow me to reach the entire finial I set them on screws that were poked through an old canvas.

Once I was all prepped, I busted out my trusty ol' Rustoleum spray paint in Crimson Red. It took a little over one can and four coats of paint to cover the surface nice and even. I probably could have saved a coat or two by priming the lamps first but that didn't occur to me until I'd already started painting. Whoopsie. I am terrible at remembering to prime things. Someday I'll learn. And, paint might have gone over the edge of the drop cloth. Loren's thrilled. Another whoopsie! :)

I bought a couple lamp shades from Lowe's but they ended up being WAY too big so I returned them. Worked out for the best. I had two different lamp shades sitting around the house that I could try.

I ended up going with the warmer toned one that also has a subtle floral print on the shade (the picture on the right). I'm not convinced it's the best fit ever but it'll be fine until I find a better option. Just look how cozy these lamps make the guest room look:

So nice! I hope our guests enjoy being able to cozy up with a book before nodding off and NOT having to get up to turn the light off. That's the story of the Goodwill lamps. The total cost was around $20: $6 for the lamps and $14 for the spray paint (but I still have some leftover). Not too shabby for twenty-bucks huh?! Anyone else been working on lighting projects? Or maybe just spray painting everything in sight?! :)