I Love Lamp(s) :)

So remember those lamps I purchased a few weeks ago from the thrift store? Well, they got a makeover yesterday!!

 

 

 

I contemplated for about a week and a half before deciding what I wanted to do with them. Initially I thought I would tea dye the lamp shades and then fill all sides with black writing, tutorial here, but I wasn't sure if I liked the color of the base that much, and if I tea dyed the shades, I had no idea what color to paint the base. So I though a bit more, and decided to go with a brighter color for the base and then keep the shades white.

 

I bleached the shades pretty much as soon as we got home with them, they were a bit stained and brownish looking , bleh!, I used my massive kitchen sink, and made a mixture of pretty strong bleach water with a bit of laundry detergent. I let each side soak for a few minutes and then scrubbed all sides with a sponge (I'd use a brush next time, the bleach started to eat the sponge!) I used dabs of bleach to get at some of the tougher stains and then rinsed them really well with warm water. When they dried, they looked much nicer and whiter then before!

 

Anyway, back to my paint color! I decided to go with yellow, our bedroom is blue (not sure what the color is called, we didn't paint it, we're in a rental) and our bedding is brown and cream/white.

 

 

BEFORE...

AFTER FIRST  COAT...

AFTER SECOND COAT!!
 (sorry about the really not good pictures, I have never claimed photography as a gift of mine!!)

 

 

 

 

 

Bad lighting, but here you can see the color better on the base, it actually looks more neon in the picture then in real life. Its more of a golden yellow (Belgian Gold OR-266 Origins by Benjamin Moore).  Oh! And by the way, those nightstands are definitely going through the makeover station yet!! Not sure what color but they are not staying the way they are:)

(Don't you just love my turtle?? He's the cutest stuffed animal! A gift from my super duper hubby! and I completely realize he's not exactly high fashion but I think he's cute, so he's staying!!!)

 Ok, so our bedroom clearly needs some work, the window is covered with cardboard from the box for our fan, so window coverings are definitely in the future! (unless we move...)  But that's what I'm working on!!  Slowly but surely I'll pull it together... well that's the plan anyways. I also need some art or mirrors or something to hang on either side of the bed by the lamps I think, we'll see what I come up with!

 

 

 

The color of my lamps was inspired by the leftover chandelier fabric from my bench that I wrote about last week. I covered three small canvases with the material and hung it in our room. Not amazing, but it added some color and showed me that the color worked well with the paint in the room. (by the way, there are two other redo's in this last photo! I picked up the dresser for $25 at a thrift store and repainted it about 4 years ago, and just recently repainted the mirror that was given to me by my sister-in-law!!)