Don’t Pass on Brass: How to Paint a Brass Lamp

Being on a tight budget, I love to thrift shop. I can be frequently seen pushing Hailey in her stroller down the street to The Salvation Army Thrift Store. I do sometimes have to get creative in how I fit my larger purchases into the stroller basket to push it back home again. This was the case with this long, heavy brass lamp. The lamp was on the shelf with a gigantic cylindrical lampshade that didn’t fit the lamp well and would never have made it into the stroller basket. Instead of wearing it on my head as I walked home, I opted to gift it back to the Salvation Army.

Here is the hard-to-look-at before:

Quite ugly, but I liked the shape. Here are the steps I took to paint the lamp:

1) Taped off the bulb socket and the cord.

2) Sprayed the lamp with two layers of a white oil-based spray primer I had on hand.

3) Lightly sanded the drips with a fine-grit sandpaper. Wiped down with a damp cloth.

4) Painted the lamp with a layer of Valspar flat Bistro White using a brush like this trimming and edging brush to get into all the nooks and crannies. Since the primer was also white, I only needed the one layer.

5) Lightly sanded the drips with a fine-grit sandpaper. Wiped down with a damp cloth.

5) Painted two layers of Minwax Water-Based Polyurethane I had on hand. This protects the paint and adds gloss to the lamp.

After scouring thrift stores and Marshalls, Ross, and Burlington Coat Factory for a discount shade, I finally gave in and bought a drum lampshade at Target for $24.99. The lamp cost $7.99. All other supplies I already had on hand. Total cost: $32.98. Considering the fact that the lamp I had in mind from Z-Gallerie as I repainted mine is $139.00, I think I did pretty well.

Z Gallerie Lamp:

My lamp:

For more thrift store finds and tutorials, see Mirror Mirror and The Gift of Thrift.

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