I have been seeing a lot of ceramic lamps out there and I LOVE the look of them! They can be VERY expensive though. Some of my favorite accounts on Instagram have a few examples and I ended up following the tutorial from @carpendaughter. The lamp makeover she did is so beautiful! I’m always looking for a good DIY project so I started looking at thrift stores for some that I could customize.
One day while I was at goodwill I came across these two which had the texture and shape that I was looking for and bought them for $7.99 and $6.99. For this tutorial I think it is best to have some layers or crevices in your lamp or vase to ensure that the lime or dirt has a place to collect. We’ll talk more about that later!
I already had some black spray paint on hand but I wanted something that looked a little more like clay so I picked up Smokey Beige by Rust-oleum and the garden lime @carpendaughter used at Home Depot. I like to use Rust-oleum’s 2X ultra paint and primer because I think it sticks better and who doesn’t like skipping a step and not having to prime, am I right?! I taped off all of the brass and cord I didn’t want painted and gave them each a couple good coats.
I was pretty happy with how they looked just having a clean coat of paint on them so I was optimistic at this point that the lime wash was only going to make them look better…. And it did! Please pay no mind to my garage overflowing with cardboard. My last design project required that I had a lot of stuff sent to my place and I haven’t been able to fit it all in my recycling bin yet. Anyways, its been coming in pretty handy for all my DIY projects so its not all bad. I wouldn’t ask my husband about it though lol! Also the AFTER picture of the lamps after the lime wash was after the first go so that black lamp got sanded and retreated for a more consistent finish.
Now back to the process… after they were dry I mixed up the garden lime and water until it was somewhat like pancake batter in an old jar. Not too thick but not too runny. About a 1 to 1 ratio. (If you don’t have any garden lime on hand I have also seen some tutorials using just dirt that turned out great as well.) Then I painted it on and let it dry. I waited about 10 minutes and then used dry paper towels to wipe it off, being careful not to wipe it off in the creases. I went against the grooves in order to make sure that I was wiping the stuff off of the top surface. So with both I wiped them vertically. There was some trial and error involved so I ended up adding a second layer of lime to the black lamp and repeating the process after I wiped a little too much off and left some spots streaky.
I was very excited with how they both turned out!!! Now comes the tricky part…. finding the perfect lamp shade. Do not take this step lightly! I bought a few at Ikea. If you didn’t know, their new line has adjustable bases that allow you to flip it for sconces and chandeliers (SO COOL!) I used one of them in the kid’s room refresh that I will be sharing with you soon…but back to this tutorial. Target has a great selection of dome shades and Amazon is where I found the more angles styled shades. I ended up trying two different shades on the smaller cream lamp before finding the right one and, not kidding, FIVE different shades on the black one before I was satisfied lol! No secret that I am a bit of a perfectionist but I really think the shade makes or breaks the light.
And here they are! What do you think?!!! Is this something that you would try? If I started making more of them would you be interested in purchasing one? I’d love your feedback below :)