Beautiful budget lamps
I love wandering around a home decor store admiring the dishes, pawing through the knickknacks and scouring the picture frames for a chippy discounted one. It’s soothing to run your fingertips over the edges of a shiny new dresser and examine all of the throw pillows before deciding none of them are quite right.
I enjoy my time there for sure, but there’s one thing I never, ever buy there.
Lamps.
It’s not like I haven’t tried. I had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet recently and spent ages looking at the lamps in one store. There wasn’t a single one I really loved, but there were a few I liked.
I just couldn’t handle the prices: $39.99 to $49.99 each. I needed two, but there was no way I was paying more than $100 for two lamps. They were pretty small lamps, at that.
In the end, I reverted to my tried-and-true method ...
Step 1: Buy two matching lamps at a thrift store or yard sale, however ugly the shape and/or colour. It honestly doesn’t matter.
Step 2: Spray or brush the lamps with a nice solid paint colour (like black).
Step 3: Buy new white drum shades for each lamp.
Step 4: Profit! (Well, not really. But you’re going to have two gorgeous, matching, very affordable lamps.)
This time around, I needed two lamps for our living room. I’d stolen the previous lamps to use in another room. It was fine during the summer, but in September the living room started to feel gloomy each evening — left with just a single standing lamp in one corner.
I dug around and realized I had already completed Step 1 — buy two ugly $3 lamps at a local thrift shop. I’d even started Step 2. I had two hideous pale green lamps I’d started to paint grey for our son’s room, and then they somehow ended up back in the basement.
I grabbed a paint brush and a half-empty jar of my favourite black paint (Coal Black by Fusion Mineral Paint) and brushed a quick coat over each lamp. The grey had looked dusty and old, but the black was bold and crisp.
The next morning, I picked up two bright white 15-inch drum shades, which you can get for less than $20 at most big-box stores. (Mine were $18.98 each at Walmart.) I brought the lamps carefully up the basement stairs, plugged them in, added the new shades and everything looked great. You would never look at the lamps and think “These are thrift store junk,” because the lampshades trick your eye into seeing something fresh and new.
Even though the new thrifted lamps don’t match the skinny standing lamp that we’ve had since our very first apartment, they coordinate because the standing lamp is also decked out with one of these crisp white drum shades.
Shades go in and out of style — like the really tapered ones with fringe along the bottom — so replacing your lamp shades can make a huge difference, even if you’re not painting the lamp bases.
I have used this method over and over in my house, and it never fails. Two matching thrift store lamps + paint + new shades = success every time.
In our bedroom, we have two huge table lamps that I bought for $2 each a yard sale. They were white and gold with ugly tube-like beige shades, but now they’re classic black lamps with white drum shades, too.
BONUS TIP: I’m obsessed with bright white light bulbs, and the only ones I’ll use now are 5,000K on the colour temperature scale. They make your whole house look brighter (and cleaner).
Our kitchen buffet has a pair of simple gold thrifted lamps that I actually liked so much I didn’t paint, but they’re also boasting bright white drum shades. My office has a pair of thrifted orange-and-brown lamps that I painted pink and they have — you guessed it — the same white drum shades.
The lamps in home decor stores are certainly beautiful and there’s no work required, other than paying for them. But I hope you might consider “adopting” a pair of $3 or $4 lamps from a local secondhand shop, painting over any weird patterns or colours and adding nice white drum shades. I think you’ll find it’s budget-friendly trick and quite a bright idea.