Spray-painting my floor lamp

Hello

This is part 1 of my attempt to redesign an old floor lamp

We recently went to our goodwill store (habitat for humanity restore) and picked up this lamp for $10.

Original lamp

It’s old and solid, and gives a beautiful light – worth far more than we paid for it!  I had grand plans to give it a new lease of life with a paint job and a mod podge or burlap shade. Something along these lines..

This was my first time spray-painting something, but after checking out this post from apartment therapy (how to spray paint metal furniture), it didn’t look too hard..

I started by popping down to my local Ace to get some paint, primer and tape

Supplies for redecorating lamp

I wanted an antique gold style lamp, so I went for the “hammered” effect paint – no idea how it will turn out!

I decided that it wasn’t worth spray painting the top part as it was gold anyway and would be hidden by the shade.  So I wrapped the top in two plastic bags, and carefully masked the edges with painters tape.  I did the same at the bottom with the cable

There have been a few posts that suggest you don’t need primer, but I didn’t want to take any chances, so I sprayed on a coat of white and left it out on our porch to dry.  It turns out spray painting is easy –  if I had realised, I would have done this years ago!  Here’s the primed version

One coat of primer and several mosquito bites later, I’ve checked the weather forecast, crossed my fingers and decided to leave it the full 24 hours to dry on the porch…  so, more tomorrow

After a coat of primer