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Friday, November 2, 2012

This Little Light of Mine... a thrift store lamp redo

Earlier this week I went to a local thrift store to look for something to use for my own last minute halloween costume, on the way in the door I saw this lamp. It was still on the porch, hadn't even been brought in to be checked over or priced. I've been wanting to try spray painting a lamp, so when I found out that it worked & was only $5, I bought it.


I had to wipe off all of the dust and then took off the shade & harp (I wouldn't be re-purposing these... at least not for this lamp). I used some masking tape to cover up the top where I didn't want it painted. 


 Then I was able to tuck the whole cord up into lamp to prevent it from being painted on (otherwise I'd have put it in a plastic bag & used tape to keep it from being painted  too).
This was when I noticed for the first time that there is an extra socket to make the base of the lamp light up too... however I'm pretty sure that this additional light would make the marks from being spray painted more visible so I'm not going to try it ... or hunt down an extra night light bulb to try it, well at least for now). ;) 

 

I feel like the lamp had some pretty details on it. 

 Then it was time to paint. This was after 1 coat of paint. I ended up using the whole can. :)




Here it is in our living room on the sofa table behind the couch.  I found a cute lampshade at Wal-Mart for $12 (this was perfect - ended up being cheaper than buying a new plain on and recovering with fabric).


 The paint didn't completely cover the brass on the top & bottom of the lamp, but that's ok. I probably would've bought some sort of antiquing glaze to give it that look on the metal parts anyway. :)




I'm super happy with the results. And can't wait to do my next one... I just need to decide on the color. 

Thursday, November 1, 2012

How I salvaged my floor register vent covers... for $7

Do your register covers look like this? Or worse (some of ours did)...
This is how I took care of the problem for $7!
 
We have lived in our house for about 2.5 years now. During that entire time the register covers for the floor vents have always bothered me. In the master bedroom they were pink (yes pink!) even though the carpet had been replaced with a neutral tan, next to doors they had scratches & rust, and the kitchen ones were even nasty brass (but rusty in spots)... 
Needless to say I've always wanted to replace them... but well every time I'd go to Home Depot & start loading up my shopping cart with new ones (even the boring tan metal ones) the cost would add up so fast. For our main floor alone I need 11! And when I wanted the ones that were atleast $15, well now you know why 2.5 years later I still had gross/blah looking register covers. ;)

 Then other day on pinterest I saw a pin that described how the person used spray paint to clean theirs up. And I thought to myself, "WOW! What a great idea, I need to do that." Then today while at Home Depot I found some Rust-Oleum Universal Hammered spray paint, that is the Dark Bronze color with a Hammered effect. OMG! I love this stuff! It was on sale for $6.97 and I only bought 1 can, but now I need more because I was only able to get 7 covers done and I still need to finish the other 5. 

All I did was pull mine out, was them off (then vacuum out the vents -eeewww it was gross... just one of those tasks I never really think to tackle), layed them out on newspaper & started spraying. It dried fairly quickly between coats and I love the texture that the Rust-Oleum "Hammered" gives.
Now for some before & after pictures


 
The  Dark Bronze cover is finished and the other 2 are prior to being painted. 
See the little bit of texture? I like it!
 
Upclose a finished cover vs the rust, chipped finish cover. Ick! Wasn't that gross?






Sooo much better! Thank you Rust-Oleum!!

And I realize that it's going to cost me another $7 to do the rest of the register covers on the first floor, but hey $14 total to get all 11 done is a heck of a lot better than the $170 I was looking at to replace them all!

I've been having LOTS of fun around here with chalk paint & spray paint, so keep an eye out for a few more posts soon! Tomorrow I'll be ready to post about my "new" thrift store lamp project and consignment store sewing table!