DIY Failures

I don't admit this often. Usually, I just throw the thing in a closet when people come over. Or cover it with something, anything. Or dance around to draw attention away from it. Ok, maybe I don't go that far. But I have this lamp.

It doesn't look so bad in the picture, but in person, sitting in my living room, I hate this lamp. It used to belong to hubby's parents, who gave it to him when he moved out, oh, about 12 years ago. When he moved into this house, it went in the attic. Of course, it was shiny bronze, and you wouldn't believe the awful lamp shade that was on this thing. It screamed 1970's. When I pulled it out of the attic, the shade promptly went in the garbage, and the spray paint came out. I was trying to do it cheap. Hubby suggested his stash of model car spray paint. I was thrilled with the choices! We decided on an antique white.

I got it painted (badly, even after a half dozen coats. You can't look too closely at anything in my house). Bought the one lamp shade we both agreed on. I don't have a picture of that stage, but it. was. so. country. What was I thinking, dark red and off-white?! Of course it would be totally country!

For the sake of frugality, I lived with it for a good long while. Then we got a matte nickle spray paint for the hardware on the bathroom vanity. I'm not too fond of the color on those, but I thought it couldn't be too bad on the lamp. Maybe it would help the shade look better.

Fail. Serious fail. I hardly ever use this term, but I would consider this an epic fail. Something about this lamp rejects looking good in any shade. It is the bane of my existence at this point. I have an idea for sprucing up the shade, and I'm thinking maybe some black spray paint on the lamp? I should probably go with oil rubbed spray paint, but I'm still trying to be cheap. I think I may just be stuck with a bad lamp until someday I manage to convince hubby it needs a new shade (and we need to spend good money on it).

I say all this to encourage others out there who may get frustrated with diy failures. Along with the saga of the bad lamp, I have also been having spray paint issues recently. It seems like half the things I try to spray get totally screwed up with cracking paint or something gets in the paint and messes it up, and it all goes downhill from there. I currently have several projects waiting for a magic idea that will fix the terrible paint job.

Look at that cracked paint! There are three layers of different cracked paint on that thing!
But for me, that's part of diy. Sometimes, you mess up. Sometimes, you make a bad color choice. Sometimes, things don't turn out the way they looked in your head. Don't get frustrated and give up! Surf Pinterest, get an idea for fixing it, and try again! That's part of the joy of diy: trying things until the project is absolutely perfect, absolutely you!