DIY Lamp Makeover {with Wiring Instructions}

Hello there!

So tonight I have another, "I told you one day you'd thank me for being a hoarder," makeover.

My grandmother, Marjorie, gave me this lamp years ago.  I've seriously been hanging on to this one for several years.  It was tucked away in my hall closet at the garage apartment...the entire time that I lived there.

Wouldn't you have hung on to it?  I think that it is so fun.

I knew that it had potential, and because I needed a lamp for Brian's bedside table, {and because it may or may not have been tucked away in the pantry pre-organization...} I tackled this old lamp.

So, I took it all apart.  

You'll discover pretty quickly that a lamp is basically all held together by the wires.

Unless you detach the wires from the socket, it's going to be pretty hard to get everything apart for painting.

But you can see here that the bottom part of the socket can be easily removed.  If you see the letters printed by my thumb, you can press there and the bottom should pop right off.

Then, the ends of the wires will be exposed.  So just loosen the screws and unwind the wires.

Then you should be able to pull all the wires out and separate all of the pieces.

So, I wasn't crazy about the green glass piece.  I considered removing it and attempting to craft something out of a wine glass or maybe a mason jar, {which would have been awesome, right?}

But then I noticed this:

At first I thought that they were cracks in the glass, but then I realized that the glass itself wasn't green, but had a thin, colored film adhered to it.

So, after a call to my dad, I decided against trying to scrape the film off with a sharp object...

And tried using nail polish remover instead.  This worked, but very very slowly.  So I took my problem to the internet, and found this article on Apartment Therapy.  

Unfortunately, my dishwasher was in the middle of a cycle already, so I impatiently filled up my sink with hot, soapy water.

Worked like a charm!

As soon as it hit the water, the film started bubbling up away from the glass and I was able to just peel it right off!  I did have to scrub it in a few places, but it was really easy.  I was so excited!

Who needs mason jars?

I'm totally kidding.  I love mason jars.  But this is pretty great!

Here you can see that it peeled right off in long strips.  

So, I spray painted the metal pieces with a red spray paint color I chose for our bedroom to match an accent in our bedding.  Then I just put it all back together...wrapped the wires around the screws and tightened them back up.

I was pleasantly surprised when the lamp actually turned on.

Love it!

I forgot to tell you one of the best parts about the lamp:

There is a socket in the glass section for a light bulb, {Christmas tree size.}

Let's say it together:  LOVE.  IT.

And this is the lamp on my side of the bed.  It was just an old white lamp which, I think, was in my bedroom when I was little...it was also tucked away in the hall closet for a few years.

The shades are from the Target Home Mix-and-Match Lamp collection.

Here you can see the red accents in our bedding from West Elm...

And here...

{I love our West Elm bedding...}

I saw these CableDrop Cable Clips on Pinterest and we ordered them from Amazon.  I hate having to fish around behind my behind my bedside table to find my iPhone charger at night, so I actually really love these.  Plus, they come in fun colors.

{I also put one on the back of our TV Unit in the living room to hold the HDMI cable that we frequently switch between our cable box and our laptops.  So now we can find the right cable easily without having to fish around back there.  Which is frustrating.  I don't like fishing.}

So while we're in the bedroom I'll go ahead and give you the rest of the tour.

It won't take long.  I haven't done much decorating in here yet.  But you might remember this from the tour of my old garage apartment:

I updated it a little by adding a second layer of scrap book paper behind each letter.

E voila:

I love this.  Even more than I did in the old house.  I tried it as a "headboard" but it just didn't work, {the source for this idea used the garland as a headboard,} mine is too small.  But I love it here!

So that is the view from the bedroom into the bathroom.  

That is literally all of the decorating I have done.  But I really am loving the color scheme happening in there.  It's all very subtle with the deep browns in the furniture and the neutral bedding, but they each have great, colorful accents in them, too.  So there's a lot of potential for more color.

I'm really looking forward to figuring out our headboard situation!  And I'd also like to find a fun accent pillow for the bed.

So that's all I've got for you tonight.  

Actually, that's a lie.  But you'll have to wait and see.

Until then...