I Love Lamp

If you've seen "Anchorman", you've probably heard this line.  Personally, it's one of my least favorite movies but Anthony can't stop laughing during it so for his sake, we get this title.  But, on to the real reason why 'I love lamp'.  We were blessed to go home to Anthony's family in New York this year for Christmas.  It was the first Christmas we've spent with family since we've been married!  It was an awesome two weeks filled with lots of laughs, tons of good food (thanks mom), and hours upon hours of playing games - Bananagrams, Scattergories, Golf, Skip-bo, Phase Ten, and Settlers of Catan...awesome games.  Since we flew there and are tightwads, meaning we didn't want to pay checked baggage fees (thankfully we got one checked bag free through our credit card), we bought most of our presents after we got there to save space.  We already had ideas of what we were getting for everyone except for mom and dad.  Then we saw their lamps.  Let me first say this, we love our mom and dad  but their lamps, well, they were a little ancient.  Ancient but with great curves!  So of course my mind goes straight to how-can-I-refurbish-them mode and then on to spray paint.  Anthony jumps right on board thinking of colors and then we get to the next hurdle...would they let us?  I felt bad just taking the lamps and totally changing them without asking, even if it will be their Christmas present, so we nonchalantly asked, "Hey, do you like your lamps?  I guess what we mean is, could we get you new ones?"  They gave us the "sure, we'd love new lamps!" answer we were longing to hear and to Wal-Mart we went to snatch up some paint and new shades.  Based on the colors in their living room, we 'compromised' on oil-rubbed bronze spray paint.  I really wanted to paint them a glossy brick red but in the end, Anthony convinced me that oil-rubbed bronze made more sense and was a more neutral, subtle choice.  
So here they are right before go-time:
I taped off the light bulb socket and switch to make sure I didn't get any paint inside the lamp.
Also, we had to be discreet since mom and dad didn't know we were actually re-doing their old lamps so we brought the lamps over to grandma's house where we painted them in her basement since it was too cold outside.  I learned to obey the directions on the back of spray paint cans last year where it says, "apply in temperatures between 50 and 90 degrees".  If you don't, the paint will develop lines and look cracked...take my word for it.

Since they're made out of metal (gold) and ceramic (green), I went the safe route and primed before I painted. 
All primed!  On to the best part...painting!

This is after 4 light coats of paint:
I sprayed right-side up, upside down, left side, front side, back side...every inch.  They looked amazing!!!  I say "Pottery Barn style meets the Bean Team Budget".  We forwent (is that a word?) our budget a little with these lamps since we wanted only the best for our mom and dad.  In the end, we ended up spending $6 on paint (of which we used barely any of the primer and a little under half the can of paint) and $30 on some sweet shades that completed our project.  So, two new, custom, stylish lamps complete with sentimental value for $36 bucks...a great Christmas present if you ask us.  The question remaining after we were done was "do you think they'll recognize the lamps?"  We were dying to find out...
Nope! They thought they were entirely new lamps!  How's that for boosting our egos?  We did reveal the fact that they were their old lamps and were delighted at their surprise and joy...and what a Merry Christmas it was!   :)

Because we're over-achievers in the home improvement area, you're probably not surprised to find out that we went on to re-painting and decorating mom and dad's spare bathroom.  Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures but the bathroom went from a bright orange to a very light grayish-green (Valspar's Tea Stain).  We had a blast doing it and look forward to tackling another room on our next vacation...the question is, who's house will it be?  Any volunteers?  ;)

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