Thrill(s) of the Week: A Petite Pair

Time for the thrill of the week! Thrills, that is, because we have a 2 for 1 this week- a pair of adorably small white lamps!

This find came from our local thrift store (2nd Avenue, if you’re wondering and in the area… they might also have other locations so Google them!) and cashed in at about five buckaroos each. We have a lot of larger lamps in our house, so these tiny treasures will be helpful in lighting some of our smaller spaces. The plan is to give them a home in the Spare Bedroom (you can check out the progress of this room here and here). We already have one bedside table and have been meaning to hunt down another, so this should be good initiative to get moving!

Eventually, we’ll find some lampshades petite enough to match their small stature, but one thing I was sure of was that they may be good candidates for a color change (even if not a color change, they’d need to be freshened up to cover the marks and spots). As we have a lot of color going on in the Spare, I didn’t want to do anything too crazy or patterned in the lamp itself or our future shades. I also bit back the urge to paint them yet another shade of teal (we already have two happening in that room), figuring that it might be a bit too busy. A pink might compete with the color of the side table, which we didn’t want either. Yellow or any other color would be super bold (which is not a bad thing), but might make the room feel sort of rainbow-y. In the end, I landed on… GOLD.

Yep, a nice subtle color that likes to hang out behind the scenes. Not. However, I thought that a gold would add a bit of flair, without seeming like we were adding yet another color to the palette of the room. So gold it was. In the end, the color was perfect- not to shiny and brassy, but enough glam to add something special to the room. Here’s a teaser of how it turned out:

In an effort not to get spray paint on the cords, I rigged up my own contraption of sorts. Essentially, I poked them through the bottom of a plastic bag, wrapped up the cord and tied the bag closed around the bundle. To keep it from sliding, I used a bit of masking tape to tape part of the bag to the cord, as close to the lamp as possible.

A few coats of spray paint later and we have a couple of glamour girls to add to our Spare!

For a test run, we stuck them in the room to see how they looked… the color is great and stands out, without competing with the other colors that are already there.

So about those shades… guess we’d better get on the ball.

And there you have it… how to:

Anyone else have a thrill of the week? Do tell!

-Leslie