Weekend Tweaks: TABLE LAMP MAKEOVER

The living room got its furniture (you read it here and here) and now comes the dressing up part. I started looking for something to hang on the wall and simultaneously for a pair of lamps for the side tables.

First I found this pair in the below picture at HomeGoods. The lamps looked too small for the room.

A week later found these beautiful pair of glass lamps in pink at Marshalls. And these were pretty tall too. But I was not happy.

Apologies for the pictures.

I returned both the pairs to the store and kept looking. I had bought 3 other pairs but none that satisfied me. I do not have the pictures of those to share with you guys. What I wanted was something that was tall as well bigger in size since the living room has high ceiling and these lamps looked minuscule.

If I did find something I liked, they were very pretty pricey, like $80 each. Lamps were not something I wanted to splurge on. Something like $100 for a pair was what I was looking for.

Few months later, one of my neighbor was having a garage sale. And these lamps were at the front of her lawn marked $5 each. These were very big and tall lamps. But in ugly color....

and uglier lamp shades. I bought them home. I knew I could make them beautiful. And loved and cared for.

Before starting my tweak on the lamp, I had to do some prep work. Decided to go with an orange color.

But which one? After trying both on a piece of lumber, went with Rustoleum "fire orange" color.

The finials (knob on the top of the lamp that affixes the shade to the lamp) that came with the lamp were very tiny and something that required tweaking. Not a paint job. Something to make them match the size of the lamp.

I kept thinking about different ways to upgrade it. One of it was sticking marbles on top of the finials. Then one day I saw it....yes, another light bulb moment! I was in my son's room and my eyes feel on his plastic golf ball. I searched his toy box and found another. In fact, 2 more.

Using an exacto knife, I cut the golf balls to make hole small enough for the finials to squeeze in and sealed it with glue so the finials do not slide inside the ball.

And now the shades. The base of the lamp was tall and big so the shades had to be big too. At least 15 inches and wider. Found 16" wide drum shades in the color I wanted for $15 each.

One weekend, after dusting the lamps, I wiped them clean with vinegar and water. Then covered the lamp sockets and the cable in plastic bags and tape.