Lamp Makeover + Bedroom Sitting Area Update

Note: Before we get back to “regularly scheduled programming,” I just want to say WOW and thank you so very much for all of your kind and supportive messages, emails and comments in response to my very personal post yesterday. I received so many messages from women who have dealt with infertility or pregnancy loss, or their sister or daughter or loved one has gone through it, and they found my post helpful. That’s exactly what I hoped for, so thank you all for blessing me with your responses. Some of you are going through it right now or very recently and I can’t thank you enough for opening up to me during such a difficult time. You are all amazing and I am thankful for each and every one of my readers.

So, I recently shared my love for all things gold. Well, shortly thereafter I decided to work on a little glam, gold lamp makeover. We scored this pharmacy-style floor lamp on Craigslist for a few bucks several years ago, and while it was fine as it was (silver), we also own another similar one, so I thought I’d have some fun with this one and make it gold.

Now, I wish I could tell you that all of my projects always go perfectly smoothly and turn out awesome, but let’s be real. Some of them are epic fails, and this one was headed in that direction.

First, I tried using Rub ‘n Buff in Grecian Gold to transform the lamp. For some reason, the Rub ‘N Buff would not adhere properly to the metal and it ended up splotchy and awful-looking. I don’t know what caused this since I did clean the lamp well before-hand and I’ve used Rub ‘N Buff before with no problems.

The lamp was a hot mess, and unfortunately so were my fingers! Actually, my entire hand was gold by the end of this project.

To remedy the Rub ‘N Buff problem, I decided to grab a can of spray paint. I used what was supposed to be a metallic gold, but it ended up being very non-metallic and my husband informed me that it looked like honey mustard. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but he was right. (Excuse the grainy cell phone pic.)

Well, I generally don’t love a lamp that looks like you should be dipping a chicken nugget in it, so I knew I had to get rid of the honey mustard color. I went back over it again with Rub ‘N Buff, this time in “Gold Leaf.” This added just the right level of “metallic,” although it may be a little more yellow-gold than I really want it to be. For now, it stays, but I may go with more of a bronze tone in the future.

Here are a few photos of the lamp in it’s new home, our bedroom sitting area.

As for the gold frame on the wall (holding a photo of our sweet boys) and the new gold table, they are both from Target. The gold table was actually one of my picks from my recent Virtual Shopping post. I got a couple of Target gift cards for my birthday and put them to good use on those items, as well as a couple other things I’ll show you later.

And since our dog, Indy, loves to practice her best photo-bombing techniques whenever I’m shooting pics of something in the house, I finally gave up on shooing her away and let her live out her lifelong dream of being a dog model.

Check out those poses. She’s a pro.

It’s always frustrating when a project doesn’t go as planned, but this one turned out ok in the end (or at least for now). Have you had any project fails lately? And does your dog aspire to be a model someday too?

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-Erin