DIY: Living Room Lamp Makeover

I love this new color!

Me: Hi, my name is Emily-Grace and I'm addicted to spray paint...  
Everyone: Hi Emily-Grace!
 

The kinda "blah" starting point.

So... I had been getting a little bored with my living room lamps.  They're lovely lamps (and I got them as a hand-me-down from a friend, so the price was right!) but something about them just seemed so blah.  The grey-silver base and gold-ish lampshades were just sort of fading away against my caramel colored walls.  And as much as I love "neutral", my living room needed a punch of color.  So this weekend, I decided it was time for a makeover.

Buying new lamps can be crazy expensive, and I have neither the money, nor the patience for that.  Instead, my husband and I scoured the spray-paint section of Lowe's to find the perfect color.  We settled on Valspar's Satin Indigo Streamer - a gorgeous deep blue with a hint of grey.  I also stopped at Ross where I purchased two white lamp shades for $7.99 each
(Seriously: Ross has BRILLIANT prices on lampshades. It's a great way to change up the look of a room for cheap!). 

Once home, I did a quick wipe down of the lamp exterior (I was half afraid I would find out that my lamps weren't actually grey, they were just covered in that much dust...) and then removed the lampshades and harps.   I gave the lamps a good coat of primer to ensure the color wouldn't run.

Doesn't the flat primer color look cool?  This may have to happen in the future...

Once the primer was dry, it was time to add some color.  I wanted to make sure that the deep blue popped, so I decided to accent the lamps with a bit of gold at the top and bottom (I have some left over hammered gold spray paint from a previous project). 

In addition to taping off, I also use a piece of scrap paper to protect the lamp from any falling bits of color.

After taping off the sections, I got to work with the gold spray paint.  I used two coats and allowed them to dry for about 45 minutes between.  Once they were completely dry, I reversed the process, taping off the gold sections and gave the body several coats of blue. 

Several hours later, when I was sure that they were completely dry, I removed the tape (there is something SO SATISFYING about the tape removal process!), added the harps, bulbs and new lampshades, and, VOILA! "New" lamps for less than $20 total!

Before and After!

I love how they turned out, but I can't promise I won't answer the siren-song of spray paint down the road! :)

Stay tuned for the rest of my living room redo!