Today I beautified an old, ugly lamp. Well, I’m not sure how pretty it is… the hubby says it looks like a cat’s scratching post. He might be right. Either way, the idea is cool and certainly worth sharing.
Enter ugly lamp:
So, the lamp doesn’t look too terrible here… but believe me, it wasn’t pretty. The lamp was originally in my step dad’s aunt’s house and was a wood-tone color with a brass bass. Totally horrifying. SO, I spray painted it. But, as I’ve said before and will say again, I am not the best with spray paint. I am too impatient and I spray too much paint and it runs and runs and runs. that might be a hyperbole, but whatevs. Morale of the story: round one of beautifying the lamp didn’t go so well.
The hubby and I were strolling through Lowe’s today and I actually remembered to buy rope for this project. Once we got home, I propped down with some hot glue and scissors and began the transformation.
I started at the top of the lamp, but if you try your own version of this project, I’d start at the bottom — especially if the base of your lamp isn’t a circle. That gave me some trouble later on. Anyway, put some hot glue to secure your rope to the base.
Since the rope I used was a little heavy, I had to hold it in place along the way so it wouldn’t fall right back off. Once your rope is secured on, start wrapping. I wrapped the lamp base very tightly, which was the look I was going for.
As I traveled with the rope, I made sure to put hot glue beneath it all. I used a lot of glue. A lot a lot.
Many hot glue burns and an hour later, I reached the square base of the lamp.
I decided to keep wrapping the rope in a circle around the base until I couldn’t wrap it any more. Then, I cut strips of the rope to cover any part of the base that remained uncovered. It was at this point that I realized the bottom of my ugly lamp was reallllly ugly. So, I removed the bottom before proceeding.
Gross, right?
Once I finished covering the lamp with rope I glued a square piece of felt to the bottom to replace the nastiness that it was before. I didn’t want to leave it uncovered because the wires were all right there.
And, my lamp was finished.
So what do you think? Does it look like a scratching post? Eh, maybe. Either way, it’s way better than before.
And the best part… my shellac nails are still in tact, even after being covered in hot glue. Awesome.
A Smith of All Trades 