White spray paint solutions: lamps

White spray paint solutions: lamps

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• 2.05.2010

I am in a lamp phase right now.  I love lamps.  My eye goes right to them in magazine pictures, stores, design blogs... siiiiigh.  Unfortunately, on a tight budget, it's hard to get the fabulous lamp look (especially if you want things to match).  I'm still working on two pretty-much-matching lamps for either side of my bed, but through lots of Goodwill-ing, I acquired a funky 60's glass lamp base and a cute modern bubble lamp.
Inspired by this Serena and Lily lamp, Crate and Barrel, and other lovely places, I wanted all-white lampage.

So I took this:

And gave it quite a few very light coats of white spray paint.  I bought two white shades from IKEA (I wanted a drum shape but this was the closest I could find, and they were only $10 each), and put this cutie on the dresser next to the bed.

There are a few imperfections, and spray-painting something super smooth like glass is generally a dumb idea (there are cracked places already, but I tried to cover them up by scratching them off and painting over):

But oh, well.  In general I looooooove it!  I wish I had another just like it so we could have matching lamps, but I doubt that's gonna happen.  I will try to find another similarly shaped base, spray paint it, and give it the same shade (I mentioned I bought two).
While I was thinking about white lamps, I remembered a cute-shaped lamp I got at Goodwill Outlet ages ago:

I topped it with an Urban Oufitters (circa 2003) shade I had lying around, but it has little scratches and dents in the paint and the black is so not me right now.  So I spray-painted it!

I also tried it with this clearance IKEA shade:

Which shade do you like better on it?  It's not going to go in the bedroom (I don't think) either way.  I can't put the plain white shade on it because it takes a lamp harp and the bubbly base doesn't.  Unless I somehow rig or electrical-tape a lamp harp on! (Uh, this is not above me..).  So for now, no matchy-matchy lamps.  But I am so excited by what white spray paint can do to a tired household fixture!