Architectural Salvage Lamps

*knocks on window....peers in*

"Is anyone still there???" she asks.

I am SO sorry y'all!  It's hard to believe that I've left you hanging since August of last year!!  I miss blogging, I really really do, and I hope to be able to carve out a little more time for it this year.  

So much has happened around here since August!  Our beloved Jack Russell passed away in November (she was 13),  Baby Girl celebrated her 1st birthday in January, in February our neighbor found a stray puppy and gave him to us and I talked Hubby into letting us keep him, we got 10 baby chicks in March (only 8 are left now and they're getting close to laying age), we've been getting fresh veggies from our garden, and of course I've still been selling shower curtains and homeschooling the kiddos.  I'll try to share some pictures of some of these things soon.

Let's get on to today's post.

 (Disclaimer - These are cell phone pictures because our computer still won't upload any pictures from my good camera, so I just had to do the best I could.)

These big ol' ugly chunky lamps came from a local thrift store.  The first time I saw them I thought, "Wow, those are ugly!" and I kept on walking.  But then I stopped and backed up and looked at them again and it hit me, I think I could give those a makeover and make them look really neat.  But...I felt like I didn't need another project staring me in the face and making me feel guilty for not completing it, so I left them there.

They stayed there for MONTHS!  Every time I went to that store I looked at them and thought about re-doing them.  Finally I decided if they were still there by the time the next 50% off day rolled around I would get them.  But then I forgot about the 50% off day and had to wait a whole month more.  

They were still there and I got them both for $3.

They weren't very pretty, and they are BIG and heavy. 

They were chipped and cracked and dirty..... I'm not too surprised no one else wanted them.

I had in mind to give them a finish that would make them look like a worn old architectural salvage piece that had been turned into a lamp.  I had in mind something like these pieces.

It was an experimental process and I really wasn't quite sure how to achieve the look I was going for, but in the end I think I ended up with something pretty cool.  

The one lamp already had two big chips knocked out of it, so I purposely chipped up the other one a bit to help it along in the "aging" process.  I gave them a base coat of a dark gray paint, then added a crackle medium in random spots all over them, then I sponged on a layer of white paint.  The areas that had the crackle medium cracked nicely and the darker undercoat showed through.  Then I added a layer of antiquing glaze and then another layer of white sponged on here and there.  I finished them off with a few coats of clear sealer in a matte finish.

I looked online and at a couple of stores at lamp shades to go with them and nothing seemed right.  Then I found these cute burlap ones at Walmart of all places and I knew they would pair perfectly because they pick up the color of the antiquing glaze really nicely.

They're not 100% the way I had hoped they would turn out, but I got tired of messing with them and made an executive decision that they were done.  It had already taken me a month and a half to get them finished and I wasn't spending any more time on them.

The display on these crates needs to be changed to fit the scale of the lamp better, but I was anxious to take pictures and be done.  : ) 

When I started this project I wasn't even sure if I would be keeping them or not, but once I found the shades and put them in place I really like them and decided to keep them.  They go nicely with the  new-to-us matching leather recliners I just bought for the living room.  

I already had all of the paints and mediums for this project, so the only cost involved with these was the initial purchase price of $3 and then the shades which were $15 each.  

There's just something so satisfying about taking one man's trash that no one else wants or sees the beauty in and turning it into a treasure.