Cheap Colorful Lamps

One of the first things we noticed as we moved into our apartment was the notable lack of light sources.  Neither the bedrooms nor living room have any overhead lights.  We knew right away that we were going to have to overcome this deficit with a large quantity of lamps.  Some of our lamps are unique, such as my roommate's twinkle lights (basically Christmas lights) from the wedding section at Walmart, or my string of Japanese paper lanterns I got on clearance ($6!) at World Market.  And some of our lamps were personalized by yours truly.

Since I was running out of money at that point in my preparations, I started where all good moneyless college students should start: the thrift store.  We're lucky enough to have several of these in my town, but one in particular has an amazingly cheap selection, so I went there.  The lamp aisle boasted a whole assortment of boring, wood or metal lamp bases.  I chose a couple in the $2 range, snagged a plain shade for 99 cents, and made out of there like a bandit.  I found a flowery shade to fit the other one at Walmart for $3 on clearance.  (Moral: clearance is a beautiful thing.)

Once I got these hideous objects home, I went to work.  Having picked up a can of bright yellow spray paint at Walmart ($3.50), I taped off the power cords and gave the lamp bases several coats.  It was a little frustrating because the paint kept wanting to slide down off the wood.  I wiped them down when I got them, but if you want your lamps really smooth, I recommend cleaning them even better to make sure all oils are off.

For my plain lamp shade, I took a Sharpie and wrote the cursive lyrics to a favorite song (Hidden Away by Josh Groban) around it in a spiral.  Something I didn't realize before I started was just how much room you have on a lamp shade; I ended up writing out the entire song three times just to fill it up.

Thus, we come to the finished products:

Finished products

The entire cost for both together was very low: $3.50 spray paint + $4 lamp bases + $4 lamp shades =  around $11.50 for two personalized lamps or $5.75 a piece.  Not bad.