Friday, April 19, 2013

Curtains and lampshades!

FINALLY! After about 3 months of having lamps without lamp shades, I've finally finished my repurposed lamps. Do you want to know the best part? It cost me a total of $8.




So, here's the scoop. The lamps came from my Dad's old living room, which my sister had been using. When she moved out she left them for us. At that time they were a lovely hunter green and brass. So, I pulled out my chrome spray paint and some vinegar and did my best at faking mercury glass. (There are lots of tutorials out there but the basic steps are: Tape of all cords and switches, spray with chrome or Krylon's looking glass, spray with vinegar and water mixture, wipe away, repeat).







Then they sat there. For a long time. I looked EVERY WHERE for lamp shades. I made the huge mistake of throwing away the previous shades (although they were cracking and had turned a funny shade of yellow) instead of stripping the material and repurposing the metal frame. I know, there are lamp shades out there for as low as $12 (the cheapest I could find), but $24 for something repurposed? Maybe I'm super cheap, but I wasn't all about that.

Fortunately, when we were visiting my mom over Spring Break she gave us some old drum style lamp shades that she had removed from previous lamps and had in storage! WOO HOO! They were perfect. So, I stripped off the green stripes on the top and bottom and recovered them with some fabric that Kathy had left over from an upholstery project!

Lastly, we bought lamp harps in order for the shades to fit onto the lamps (which is where the $8 was spent).

So now are lamps are complete! YAY :)


Also, I finished "making" the curtains for our french doors that lead to our craft-study-guest-home for random things-art room. This project was also an incredibly frugal one. Mainly because, hey, curtains are expensive. So, why not use bedsheets instead? I bought two queen size bedsheets at Walmart for $10 each. And then found this awesome tutorial on making a curtain rod ('cause hey, those are pretty darn expensive, too!). I got a piece of electrical conduit for $2 and then bought some finials that closely matched the ones over our other windows on ebay for $10. Lastly, I got curtain hardware at Walmart for $1. Pretty awesome. So, total cost for two curtain panels and an 8ft curtain rod = $33. Not too shabby.


Don't mind that random shadow behind the door. It's just my dad's cornhole set. Oh the joys of having a completely unorganized guest room that doubles as a craft room.
Yay for completing two projects on my list! Only 168 more to go :)

1 comment:

We'd love to hear from you all!