From drab to fab...

Pin It     I've wanted some "chunky" lamps for our living room for a while. I loved my turquoise lamps but I thought they were a little two small for the place. Plus I added a new piece of furniture to our living room (more on this later), and the old lamps were just too much.

   So I was looking for something new. But bigger table lamps are so expensive!! I couldn't find anything in our price range. I tried thrift stores (and many of them) and classifieds but it's so hard to find 2 matching lamps I would like.

   Until last week when I found these:

   Aren't they awesome?? They were really dusty and hidden on the very back among other lamp bases and shades in our local DI (thrift store). But they were definitely in my price range. The purple one (it looks brown on the picture but it's actually dark-purple) was $8:

   And the teal one was only $5:

  The second one was a little cheaper because these are glass lamps painted inside, and the paint was damaged (not the actual lamp, just the paint on the inside):

   I didn't really care about it because I already decided to paint them on the outer side. One of the lamps is actually slightly smaller than another but it's not visible at all when they sit on different side tables in our living room.

   So I cleaned them REALLY well with soap and water and then some diluted vinegar. Then I grabbed my new favorite spray paint:

   I got it from Walmart for $3.67. It has such a beautiful hue. Love it! So I spray-painted my bases. Then I used a gift card for Wally that I had for a while and wanted to use for something special. I got shades with it. Well, I actually only had $21 on a card and shades were $15 each. But I believe it's still a great deal! After all the savings I only spent $13.5 per lamp. Here's the finished result:

    And one more before and after:

   Oh, I'm in love! And just for a comparison, a somewhat similar lamp half the size of mine costs $149 HERE. These are my kind of savings!