My Lent Lamp

I am a recovering Goodwill addict.

No, seriously. If you’ve donated something to a Goodwill within a 20 mile radius of where I work and/or live, chances are I have at least perused if not purchased some of your old wares.

No shame… well, used to be no shame. Allow me to explain.

I am participating in 40 Bags in 40 Days for Lent this year. This is my first time participating in Lent! Growing up Southern Baptist, we didn’t do the whole Lent thing, and honestly, I didn’t get the point of giving something up for 40 days. Ooh, wow, you gave up Coca-Cola for 40 days. That lack of carbonation must make the gas barrier between you and God smaller. Congrats.

I didn’t realize until recently that it’s not just about giving something up – it’s about giving up something that distracts you from your relationship with God. It’s about taking the time you would have spent thinking about or doing that thing/activity and using that time to completely focus on God. It’s to reflect on the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, which I get pretty amped up thinking about.

Do you HAVE to give something up to prepare for that? Did Jesus command his disciples “to therefore give up fast food for 40 days before Easter”? Of course not. I chose to participate this year for me – not because I felt I needed to, but because I thought it might help prepare my heart and draw me closer to God.

Enough theological stuff. The basic question – what did I give up for Lent?

STUFF.

I gave up extra STUFF.

Y’all – Andrew and I live in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with an attached garage. And we were having trouble walking around trying to dodge clutter and boxes. We moved here in December… so I really have no excuses for the remaining boxes anymore. Just thinking about the clutter stresses me out, so I decided to go along with 40 Bags in 40 Days and decrapify our home.

I will spare you the details – suffice it to say that I went on a cleaning-out RAMPAGE on Monday and got rid of a ton of crap. Seriously. I thought I’d cleaned out before we moved… nope. Not enough.

I am SO much happier in our home now! It’s clean, it’s clutter-free, and it’s a relaxing place to be. I have more time to spend with Andrew and the fur babies, and instead of thinking about all the crap I need to clean out in our home, I now try to intentionally focus that time on prayer and my relationship with God.

Okay, so onto the real reason you’re reading this post. My lamp. My awesome lamp.

I was cleaning out my garage and my new rule is that anything I won’t immediately use or repurpose has to go. Also, no more buying stuff unless it’s ABSOLUTELY necessary. We just don’t need the clutter.

I bought this lamp (I told Goodwill they could keep the busted shade) for $2 at Goodwill. I LOVED the shape of the base, but y’all – the color. The hideous “my dog ate rich people’s money and then pooped it out” green was NOT working for me. I almost got rid of it when I was decrapifying… but decided to give it a fresh coat of paint to see if it would change my mind.

Oh, what’s that? You can’t see it? Let me zoom in for you.

Yuck.

A few months ago, I picked up a TON of paint for free  from a lady off Craigslist who was moving. I was perusing my newly-organized tool and paint shelf for the perfect color for this lamp when I came across this half-full bottle of spray paint.

It intrigued me. Special Purpose Stainless Steel Finish spray paint? Don’t mind if I do.

So I went nuts with the paint.

Some people get fancy and tape off the cord so that you don’t spray it -whatever. I’m not that fancy. It’s hidden, anyways, so I didn’t care.

I did recently read (in HGTV magazine that I am OBSESSED with) that about a inch to an inch and a half of the stem should show beneath your shade, so I went ahead and painted the stem, too.

I’ve gathered that this paint costs around $8-$10 per can, which is pricey; however, I used MAYBE 1/4 of a can on this big ol’ lamp. If you can get a few smaller projects out of it, I say it’s totally worth it.

My next daunting task was trying to find a lamp shade for this bad boy. I originally wanted a plain white shade. I went hunting for one in Bed, Bath, and Beyond (armed with a coupon and a leftover wedding gift card). I couldn’t find a plain white one, but when I stumbled upon this bad boy, I fell in love. The shade I purchased was $19.99 with 20% off, so about $16.

I attached the shade using a top knob from my old busted up lamp… and shazam. Magic.

Recognize the nightstand? It’s from this post.

I am IN LOVE with this lamp. Seriously. I know I shouldn’t feel so proud for a quick coat of spray paint, but dangit, I do. I really do.

Before and after – I’d say a huge improvement!

DIY Revamped Nightstand

Hi, my name is Callie, (Hi, Callie.) … and I’m a free furniture hoarder.

Okay, I may have a problem. If you can’t tell, I’m really into this whole DIY thing. My poor husband keeps asking me where we’re going to put all of the free Craigslist furniture I keep getting… but c’mon. It’s FREE. I will ALWAYS be able to find a place for free furniture.

I’m trying to tackle one piece per weekend in hopes that one day, my furniture will be fabulous and exactly as I imagined it would be. Ha.

This weekend, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at priming and painting this adorable little nightstand.

Isn’t it the cutest?? I love the shape of the legs.

This came from Andrew’s house and has been chilling by our bed since we moved in. It’s ridiculously sturdy (and HEAVY – that was a bit of shock when I picked it up to move it outside. Yowza) and a really great piece; however, it was pretty banged up. The top of the nightstand was really scratched and the finish had worn off in several places.

I decided to paint this little baby. About 2 weeks ago, I finally settled on a color scheme for our house – I’m going to stick with gray, black, deep teal, and rich plum-purple. These colors make me happy, and I feel like they’re relatively gender-neutral. This makes the husband happy since I’m not running around trying to paint everything Pepto-Bismal pink… yet. So basically, everyone is happy happy happy. It’s what we do.

I chose to go with a gray for this piece. I felt like it would stand out enough in our bedroom without being too crazy. I was really inspired by this post from Little Green Notebook (one of my favorite home design sites – I’m a little obsessed). I loved the contrast of the gray paint with the metallic doors. I knew I didn’t want that deep of a gray, so I went with a smoke gray color. I decided to try two different metallic contrast paints – one was a Martha Stewart metallic paint in Thunder Cloud that I got from Home Depot. The other was a tiny bottle of silver leaf paint I got from Michael’s (the craft store – not from some random dude named Michael.. although let’s be real – if a random dude offered me free metallic paint, I’d snatch it up without thinking twice).

Okay, to start – I got a piece of sandpaper and did a really light sanding of this piece.

Even just doing a quick sanding on the nightstand helped a lot – lots of the varnish came right off. Definitely good to start with this.

I took a microfiber cloth (you can get a 2-pack of these for $1 at The Dollar Tree and they work GREAT) and wiped the nightstand down.

I knew I needed to prime the nightstand before I painted it. I did a lot of research to find my best option. I also talked to my dad (who, conveniently, works at Home Depot and is ridiculously smart) and he recommended Zinsser Cover Stain.

My newest obsession.

Y’all – I am IN LOVE with this stuff. Seriously. I know it says that you can use this without sanding, but my dad recommended that I do a quick sand before priming and I’m really glad I did – just to get a relatively even finish before I started.

This primer glides on effortlessly. I thought I might need to use two coats of primer, but the Zinsser Cover Stain is so thick that I only needed one coat. BONUS – it dried in an hour. Impatient Callie was so pleasantly surprised and happy.

I’m a really messy painter.

For my paint, I decided (yes, after researching. Don’t judge me) to go with an oil-based paint. I usually prefer a satin finish on furniture, but I wanted this piece to really stand out since it’s so small, so I went with a gloss oil-based paint. I chose Rust-Oleum’s Smoke Gray, both for the price (it was the cheapest BY FAR) and the reviews.

Because the primer was so fantastic, this paint went on the nightstand beautifully. I did a coat, waited a few hours, did a second coat, waited a few hours, and did some touch-up work. The color is PERFECT. I’m in love.

After everything dried, I used the Martha Stewart metallic paint to paint the face of the drawer. I wanted it to be subtle,  but different. I couldn’t decide what to do about the drawer pull, so I painted the outside of the pull with the Rust-Oleum and painted the inside circle with the silver leaf paint.

Originally, my plan was to see which silver I liked better and go with that for both accents; however, after looking at it and then dragging Andrew outside to look at it, we both decided that we liked the two different silver paints and left it the way it was.

Here she is! I love the look of the nightstand now and how glossy it is. I think it’s a really fun piece.

Just for kicks and giggles, I decided to paint the inside of the drawer, too.

Kind of a fun little surprise, right? I think it just helps to really pull everything together.

All in all, I’m really pleased with how my nightstand turned out. It adds so much to our little bedroom.

Up next… the dresser and chest of drawers! I can’t wait to take a paintbrush to those bad boys.