I Love Lamp!!

I went back and forth between that title and "Re-wiring an Estate Sale Lamp...and only getting shocked once."  Not sure which one is better.

Anyway, I found a gigantic metal lamp at an estate sale a few weeks ago for $10.  We need more light in our living room since there is no built in lighting.  It was old and dirty, but I could tell it just needed a little love.

At home I dusted it off and realized it was a lot dirtier than I thought it was when looking at it in the basement of the estate sale.

I took it apart and scrubbed it down with Bar Keeper's Friend.

In order to get the grime off, I needed to scrub down to the bare metal...and that would take hours of work.  So I decided to give it a good soap and water clean and spray paint it.

Fast forward to this past weekend.  I spray painted the lamp with Rustoleum's oiled rubbed bronze metallic spray paint with primer.  I am having difficulty finding a tall enough lamp shade, so I also bought a non-glossy beige spray paint for the lamp shade.  It is only a short term solution until I find the proper lamp shade.

Yes I used a bush as a table so that I wouldn't risk
getting my outdoor furniture covered in paint.

 I followed the directions on the can applying very thin coats every minute.  I let it set for 24 hours, then did a few thin touch up coats.  After 48 hours for the pieces to cure, I was ready to assemble the lamp.

There was one hang up.  The lamp needed to be rewired.  The wiring in the old lamp was very old and non-safe looking.  Al helped me pick out a new lamp wire.  (Helped = said "here are the three they have...what color do you want?")  Unfortunately Al was going to be working tonight...and I REALLY wanted to assemble the lamp tonight.  So I was going to be brave and play with electrical wire...what could go wrong?

First I unscrewed the old wiring and got that out of the way.

How funny is it that I am building a lamp
on my husband's lighting design homework??

Then I assembled the lamp with the new cord through the center.  When I took the lamp apart I made a cheat sheet to put it back together.  I was very happy to have this now...my past self is a genius!

Clearly I should have been an art major.

I wound the new wiring around the screws and screwed them back in.  This is where I got dumb.  I wanted to test the whole thing out before assembling the rest of the lamp.  I plugged in the cord without covering up the exposed wiring...ZAP!  (Another title to the post could be "Lack of Patience Leads to Electrocution"...but that would scare the crap out of my mom.)

 After the shock of the shock (hehe), I put the old cover around the wiring parts.  (Don't be frightened by my highly technical lighting terms.)

 ...and screwed the switch on.

 This time...no shock!!  (Amazing what happens when you don't intersect a body part into the circuit.)

 Here is the living room before. 

 ...and here is it after!

The side by side of before/after is pretty great.

The painted shade does not allow light through, but it looks nice and it will work until we find a replacement.  Here is a cost break down...

lamp......$10
ORB spray paint...$8
beige spray paint...$5

new wiring...$6

Total = $30

The new shade will probably be $30-$50, so the total will likely double, but I'm still very happy considering well made lamps of this size are over $100.  Hopefully I can score a deal on a lamp shade.

What have you DIY'd lately?