DIY: Lamp

Since our living room doesn't have overhead lighting, we have to rely strictly on lamps. Luckily, we have a floor lamp from my apartment, but there was one little corner that needed a little lighting oomph. So I've been keeping my eyes open for the perfect lamp. Turns out, the perfect lamp is ridiculously expensive. I mean, come on, it's a lamp, why you gotta charge an arm and a leg? So until I could find this quintessential "perfect" lamp, I thought I'd bring a little light in our lives on the cheap.

Enter: Goodwill.

I figured if we could find a nice, functional lamp, and add a little paint and a new shade - it would bring it to life.

This was the winner. A $7 ceramic lamp with bent-up shade. (Fifi really liked it.) Please disregard the base, I had already taped it up to prepare for Operation Spray Paint. We picked a really pretty blue-green for a pop of color, but still tie in with our green walls and navy couch.

But Operation Spray Paint wasn't perfect. Some flecks of something from outside got into the paint and there were a few drips. So I had to let it dry and do some sanding.

But after a little TLC, it all turned out fine and dandy. Look at this beauty! Spray paint for $5 and a shade for $16 - with the lamp, that makes $28. This similar lamp goes for more than 20x that!

And little did we know, a lamp shade provides endless hours of entertainment for the kitties. Double score.