From Ugly to Way Better

Remember this lamp:

I've had it this way forever. Ever since Jeff broke my really nice, heavy one. Not sure why I have tolerated it this long. Probably because I was too cheap to replace it and desperate for the light it provided in this room.

I took the Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint to it and found a new lampshade and covered it with new fabric and here it is:

It looks so much better! I learned so much about lamps. I bought a lamp harp to extend the height of the shade. I wanted a drum type shade. I loaded Gunnar up in the car one Saturday, went to the first thrift store in town and found this awesome thing ready to cover for $2.99. I took it home, immediately cut out the fabric and went to cover it, only to find out that it was too short. The shade has a very slight upward curve to it. So I rolled the shade over some paper for a pattern, like I was supposed to, to get the curve. I was to cheap to buy more fabric, so I took the two pieces that I cut apart, sewed them back together and cut out the fabric with the pattern. The mistake is barely noticeable on the back. It totally worked out.
**So my cousin wanted more details so she can do it herself. Take a piece of newspaper (if the shade is small) or something longer for a bigger shade to make the pattern. Find the seam on your lampshade and place it down on the paper. Begin to trace the edges of the lampshade onto the paper as you roll it. Once you get to the seam again, you are done. I took my sewing guage and measured little tick marks about 1/2" away from the lines that I just made to create the extra to glue over the shade. Cut it all out. I read on one tutorial, that she used spray adhesive to keep the main body of the fabric attached to the lampshade. I didn't have any, so I used fabritac (or hot glue would work too) and spread a line down the seam to start. Then I would but some on the very top and bottom of the shade, press the fabric in and do this slowly until it was tight and done. Then I went back around and glued down the edges on the inside to finish it up. Lastly, I folded over the fabric at the seam and glued down to make it looked finished. I hope this makes sense. The harp and finial also came in bronze only so I spray painted that as well. There are several great tutorials online already. Just google how to recover a lampshade.

I have to tell you about the process of picking out the fabric. Gunnar really liked this lighter green fabric. So did I until I found this one. He was SO strongly opposed to this one, he would throw the bolt out of the cart. I had to keep it on the very bottom of the cart. Not sure why he was so passionately against it. It's not that bad. An older lady, also getting fabric cut, looked at what I was getting and said, "Oh, you are going with the ugly one." I had to laugh but I do like it much better than the other one. **So I posted this in a hurry earlier and apparently forgot to explain most of this story. The lady totally said it sarcastically with a laugh because she saw the drama with Gunnar and said she had a grandson just like him.