Do you have something in your house that works perfectly well, it looks fine, and you have no justification what so ever to replace it, but you HATE IT? Yeah…that was my living room light fixture. It was fine…I just didn’t like it. It was also big, and costly to replace with anything I like. So it had no hope of getting replaced anytime soon. I had come to terms that our whole living room is in fact an epic fail (sofas don’t fit the space, the tv console is hideous, the dogs crate lives in the living room, and there’s no place to set down a drink.) So you think I would just concede the light failure and learn to live with it. Like the way hoarders seem to have come to terms with crawling over their belongings to get to the bathroom. Not so. I my friend am what you would call anal retentive, and if I can possibly change something I hate; I will.
This weekend I had enough of that light fixture, so I got El Granto to take it down, and I marched it outside and I spray painted that light. Take that heinous light. Now you are the same heinous light with a prettier color! Nah, I’m not giving it enough credit, I think it looks much better, and definitely good enough to get it off my hit list for a few months.
So here’s what we did.
Took the light apart (the bowl came attached from the rods, and the rods from the light fixture). It’s hard to see the lights terrible color from my before pic. It was white with gold brush strokes and a hint of green. Waaaay to country for this city house.
I cleaned everything, then dragged a few saw horses outside, and made myself a little work station. I hung the rods and the hoop that the bowl sits in from an old piece of wood with some nails in it. I sat the light on some cardboard. In hindsight I should have hung the light as well as it would have been easier to paint. I made sure to mask off the light socket with tape. I painted with my favorite spray paint; Rustoleum Universal. This time with some left over Oil Rubbed Bronze. I painted with several light coats, ensuring I got into the nooks and crannies of the light. Sorry grass, you were collateral damage in this project.
After it dried we took it back inside and re-hung. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
SOURCE LIST:
Materials:
Rustoleum Universal Spray Paint in Oil Rubbed Bronze – Home Depot
Tools Used:
Screw Driver, Ladder, Husband
Difficulty Level (on a scale of 1-5):
Total Cost: $0 (already owned the paint, $10 if you needed paint)
Great article! Wishing I had a backyard to do this stuff in.
…where’s the like button on this page? (hits imaginary “Like” button with great satisfaction).