Here's the before...
Boring!
Pretty meh, right? Plus it really doesn't fit in with my new scheme. I had some leftover oil-rubbed bronze spray paint for the lamp itself and some old, messed up books that weren't readable anymore to jazz up the shade.
I'm still not 100% in love with shade, but once my sunroom/library is finished, it may fit in better and I may fall wholly in love with it. However, I gotta say I like it better than before!
Painting the lamp was easy. After I taped off the cord and the socket, I just sanded the finish, wiped it with rubbing alcohol, primed it, lightly sanded it, primed it again, lightly sanded again, sprayed one coat, lightly sanded and sprayed a second coat. And, boom, that bad boy was DONE!
Now, the shade was another matter entirely. I carefully cut pages from my books, folded and pleated them, then sewed them together, right down the center of the pages.
You don't have to be precise with your folding and pleating. Just fold, pleat and sew and sew and sew until you have a long strip, long enough to wrap around your shade four or five times.
This doesn't take nearly as long as you think! It probably took about 45 minutes of folding, pleating and sewing. Now onto gluing this seemingly endless strip of pages onto the shade...
Fold the strip in half and start gluing it down along the bottom edge of the shade. I used a hot glue gun, which turned out to be a saving grace, as you will soon see! When you get to the end of the first row, cut your strip and glue the ends down. Then glue each row the same way to the top of the shade.
Now the shade is done and ready to put back on the lamp. UNLESS, you're too stupid to check which end of the shade is up BEFORE you start gluing. I was not that stupid, I just don't know up from down :)
If you remember, I used a hot glue gun, which made it much easier to fix my mistake. All I needed was a hair dryer. I used the hair dryer to melt the glue so I could gently pull the paper off and reuse it.
I did not use my heat gun because I was afraid it would get too hot and burn the paper. Then I'd have to redo all the folding, pleating, and sewing. Again. And I was not up for that. Plus, I hate wasting things. Fortunately, it all worked out. I got the paper off without tearing it, turned the shade right side up and re-glued the paper. Lesson learned.
I got a new lamp for my sunroom for free! All I needed was a little time and effort!
Until the next project,
Chris :)
