A million years ago, when David and I built our first house, we found a plain, simple white lamp we both loved. We bought it and had it through the years. Fast forward 10 years-the lamp almost got ditched in the big move. I literally pulled it back out of a box I labeled “Trash” because I had an idea I wanted to try.
The lampshade looked dingy but I loved the shape. I decided to add some texture. The idea to wrap string around the shade popped into my head. I pulled out a roll of white cotton string I had in my garage and my hot glue gun. I wrapped it in the midst of the chaos of unpacking. It was a nice way to take a break from the madness.
I wrapped the entire lampshade in the string. After I wrapped about 4 inches, I would drop another dollop of hot glue and drag it along with the string. This method created a “nubby” look. Once I was finally finished, I painted the entire thing (string, glue and all) with white acrylic paint to make it look clean and even.
The result was better than I even expected. The texture of the lampshade is that of raw silk and it contrasted perfectly with the smooth body of the lamp. While this technique works beautifully on a lamp, I tried to duplicate it on an upholstered bench. That was an epic fail. I used twine instead of cotton string and it was awful. If you do attempt this, use this type of string: cotton string. Learn from my mistake.
I also spray painted the inside of the lamp shade with gold spray paint. (Y’all know I’m picky about my gold spray paint. I think this is the best one: gold paint.) It added such a nice finishing touch.
The navy table was something I found and refinished. Stay tuned for the before pictures of the table and refinishing “how-to” in tomorrow’s post!
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