Refurbishing my Ikea lamps

Materials: Ikea lamp, spray paint, ikea fabric, masking tape, recycle paper

Description: I bought a pair of these lamps from Ikea about 5 years ago I think, when I first planned to move into our new home.

They were cream in colour, and really nice. Fits the ambiance I planned for my hall. Well, it still does, except that now the creamy porcelain base has gray marks from all the dusts, and some chipped surface from scrubbing the dust off the base. The lamp shade has yellow ageing spots. Ugh!!!

1) Bought a can of spray paint in baby blue. I wanted teal, but the shop only had this one blue colour and I kinda liked this blue, so I bought it.

2) Unscrew the bulbs, separate the shade from the base – basically unscrew whatever that can be removed or separated.

3) I use masking tape and lots of recycled paper to cover the wire and the metal & plastic parts (those that is there to hold the bulbs and the shades. The idea is to cover parts where you don’t want paint on.

Because the base of the lamp has holes in them, I taped paper inside the base so that the paint won’t go in (it is hollow there and you can get to it from the bottom). There’s a place for a bulb there too!

4) Then, this is the fun part. Spray two coats of paint on the base. I left it overnight to make sure it is truly dry (I’m just like that).

5) Then, for the shade – fun and sticky. This is where I took out my Fabric Mod Podge and some leftover Ikea fabric. I simply measure around the shade, cut out 2 pieces of fabric (because they are leftovers, I don’t have just one piece that fits around). Brush mod podge on the shade and glue the fabric on. I made sure that the fabric on the outside is slightly wider (about 1.5cm both sides) than the shade, so that I can turn it over and glue them to the insides of the shades

That’s really about it.

See more of the refurbished lamp.

~ Grace