The Lamp Factory

I currently have three pairs of lamps in various stages of makeover.

It's no secret that I L.O.V.E. Home Goods lamps. They have a wide variety, they often have pairs (and I love pairs of lamps almost as much as pairs of chairs), and you can't beat the price. Even other mass retailers that I think of as being inexpensive, like Pier 1 or West Elm, sell lamps for about three times as much. Many of my faves from Home Goods look unique, and you would never guess I paid under $50 at a discount store.

However.

For some reason, the default base seems to be that brushed nickel, no matter what the style of lamp. And with gold accents in most of my house, nickel lamp bases just won't do.


So I've been spraying a couple of them with metallic brass rustoleum. In the un-ventilated basement. (Still too cold to open the windows here!) When the girls and I walked in the back door after school pick up, the house reeked. Oops.

This pair also had mismatched finials, and neither looked like it went with the lamps.
So I got an extra $5 knocked off each one and figured that a matching finish would at least distract from the mismatched shapes. Maybe eventually I'll buy new finials (but I doubt it.)

Pair number 2: ikea wall lamps for the guest room. You can see one in the middle there, also going from nickel to brassy, along with the wonky finials.


(You can also see the legs of a set of 4 white Ghost chairs, all stacked up. I almost sprayed them gold, just by the proximity of that spraying station. That would have been a VERY expensive mistake. Sometimes I'm a total idiot about my projects that way.)

Pair number 3: What do you think about this classic navy ticking to top off these brass stick lamps? The original white shade is feeling a bit stark against the new navy walls.


I think I'll probably go for it. This is the last project for the guest room, and then I can share the results! But at least this is a sneak peek of the wall color. I like it more and more and more and more. And our weekend guests dug it, too.

Oh, and the green lamps back in the living room.

Perhaps the most subtle "after" shot on earth. But much, much better, especially since the frames on the wall RIGHT THERE are black and gold.


Sometimes it's the little things, isn't it?