Bedside Lamp

Our bedroom formerly served as a walk in closet for the previous owners.  Walls lined with shelving and an abundance of clothes, many of which still had tags.  About 30 pairs of sunglasses and handbags.  It was amazing.....I am happy to say that I have contained my clothing to the small built-in closet and a dresser.  My dresser was a find on the buy, sell, swap board at one of the hospitals where I worked.  I purchased it for $25 to repaint but it sat in my friend's garage for awhile before I had a vision for it. 

It was a bit more of a project than I bargained for!  After removing the white paint, I discovered a dark red stain underneath.  I couldn't remove the stain so I figured paint should cover it.  Wrong!  That red stain bled through about three coats of primer and two coats of blue corn chip paint (I love the names for paint colors!).  I believe the third coat of paint finally did the trick!  The colors of the dresser match our bedspread that is an oversized Woolrich item spread that I found on sale at Target!  My texture of choice for the bedroom is burlap.  I used it to "sponge" paint on the dresser and cover the drawer knobs.  This was one of my favorite projects!

A few months ago I rescued a full-length mirror that had barely survived my college days and many moves after.  The mirror was fully intact but the backing was coming off and it needed some beautifying.  I reattached the frame and backing, painted the frame with paint left from the dresser.  I then added burlap and some painted dowels.

My latest edition to the burlap bedroom is a bedside lamp.  Until about a week ago, the room was lit by the ceiling fan light only.  This was great except the switch was by the door and not convenient for reading in bed, chatting before falling asleep, or leaving the fan on for warm nights.  We found a lamp base at a thrift store for $5.50 but no acceptable lamp shades.  I purchased a shade at Walmart for $4.50 which brought the total a bit higher than I wanted for this project.  I am thankful that the rest of the materials were ones I already had on hand:  paint (still tons left from the dresser), burlap, material from the curtains, and some ribbon from my scraps box.

I added texture to the base with paint and burlap.  Spray-on clear coat finished the project so that the paint would not chip off the ceramic surface.  I added a blue and brown tie to the shade with some hot glue.  I had originally pictured a more elaborate upgrade to the shade but opted for a simple look.  I wanted the focal point to be the texture of the burlap.  We are so happy to finally have a bedside lamp.  Now I just need to find/build that corner shelf behind the bed for it to sit on.....

Here is the final product!