There is nothing quite like the feeling you get from a completed DIY project that turns out just like you planned it.
It feels a bit like this:
You walk around feeling all proud and showing off your little project off to everyone who walks through the door.
And it doesn't even matter when they say,
"Great, mom. Glad to see you worked so hard today throwing paint on a pillow while I sat through 7 college level classes in 8 hours. Way to strive for excellence."
But sometimes your DIY doesn't go exactly as planned...
A few weeks ago I decided something must be done about the outdated lamps in my living room.
I am planning to replace them eventually but for now I needed to make them work.
The first step was to tackle the base.
I started by priming it then spray painting it in a nice glossy white.
It was a huge improvement!
But the shade is off white and looked really lame next to the bright white lamp base.
New shades are quite expensive and since I am not planning to keep the lamps any longer than I have to, I didn't want to invest a lot of money on new ones that may not work with future lamps I will likely purchase.
After seeing this great painted lampshade DIY from Jenny at Little Green Notebook,
I decided painting my shades would give them a great new look without costing me anything except a little bit of time.
So, I raided my daughter's art studio for some paint and a brush and mixed up a color I thought would be a bit 'unexpected' in my very traditional living room.
I wanted an aubergine or eggplant color so I mixed some purple with a bit of black to make it really warm and dark.
Then I set to work painting the shades:
It was actually looking pretty darn good and I was feeling like the bomb-diggity!
I finished painting both shades with my perfectly mixed custom color then I cleaned everything up and put my lampshades back in place on my lamps while they dried and sat there all pleased with myself.
Until the sun went down...
..and I turned on my lamps.
Then stood horror-stricken at the sight before me!
(Enter slashy violin music from the Psycho movie shower scene)
It was then that I understood why Jenny at Little Green Notebook applied 2 coats of paint to her lampshade.
Because if you don't, your painted lampshade DIY project comes out like this:
'Streaky' was not exactly the look I was going for.
"Why not just apply another coat of paint?" you ask.
Well, like I said, I mixed this color myself and, of course, didn't measure out anything so getting an exact color match would be like trying to find a really good Taylor Swift song.
It just ain't gonna happen, people!
So now I think I might just paint these guys black.
Because that's what the Rolling Stones would have wanted.
À la vie et à
l'amour
-Cortney
No comments:
Post a Comment