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Table lamp shopping can be quite the shock if you haven’t had to purchase a new one in a while. Even at the “big box” stores, most decent sized table lamps start at $30-$35. Then you need to buy the shade to go with it. When all is said and done, you’re easily looking at upwards of $50. Maybe this is not a big deal to most people, but for the family on a budget, when you need several lamps to go around a room, it all adds up really quickly.

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Where to Find an Affordable Table Lamp

Thrift stores! Now, granted, most thrift store table lamps need a little updating and some TLC before they become something you’d be happy to display in your home. A new shade (or four, in my case) and a little paint and voila! What was an ugly, dated table lamp is now something you’d be happy to display in your home.

I found this table lamp while out thrifting with some girlfriends and I loved the shape. The price tag said only $6.99 and I knew it needed to come home with me. While someone obviously had placed bulbs in it with wattage that was way too high, I knew if proper lightbulbs were installed, there would be no further damage. And those details! All the heart eyes….

Table Lamp Update Take 1 –

AKA the Giant Mistake

In typical fashion, I painted the lamp a funky color (hot pink, in this case) – thinking I was going to love it…

and then realized I didn’t love it at all. *sigh* I’m a neutral color girl at heart and I just couldn’t do the pink. I tried. I really did! 😉

Apparently I’m a slow learner, because I did the exact same thing (just a different color) with my Drop Cloth covered chair. Perhaps I should just stick to what I know I love.

Table Lamp finds Redemption

Side note – painting an object that has lots of curves, nooks and crannies CAN be done with a regular paint brush or a cheap chip brush, but a round brush works best to easily get into all those small spaces. These brushes look amazing (and they’re on my wishlist for “one of these days”) – but if a brush like this is currently out of your budget, then a big old fat stencil brush works wonders! That’s what I used for this lamp and it was perfect. Another win for “necessity is the mother of invention”! 😉

If you read in my side table makeover post, you’ll know that I used a product called Chalk Mix from Diva of DIY – and it worked great. Well, I still had a little chalky paint and powder left over, so I mixed that with some other leftover white chalk-type paint from my Faux Fur Footstool project. Three cheers for using what you have!

If you’ve done any painting at all, you’ll know that red (or bright pink) is a really hard color to cover. Even so, it only took two coats of paint and my lamp was done. And this time, I loved the result.

As you can see, this chalk mix has quite a bit of texture to it. While I don’t mind some texture (as seen below) I did give my table lamp a light sanding to knock down most of the tiny texture particles. This is totally optional. Here’s a close up to show you what I mean.

I’d love to know…have you used a chalk type mix before? What has been your experience?

This lamp is part of a $100 Room Makeover Challenge with some of my blogging BFFs. Stay tuned next week for the big reveal! We are fondly referring to it as our “Champagne Taste on a Kool Aid Budget” Makeover Edition. Anyone can makeover a room with thousands of dollars in their budget…but come back to see what this great group can do with only One Hundred Dollars!

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