Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Spray on, bros. Spray on.

Remember when I posted about the lovely teak pendant lamp that now lives in our kitchen? On that same trip, I picked up a wall-mounted light for above the sink for the super-bargain price of $10 at my local ReStore, which is run by Habitat for Humanity. It's essentially like a thrift store for home improvement items. Which is just, you know, awesomesauce.

My mission? To replace the light in the background that was kind of just....there.



Even though the deeply discounted fixture was chrom-y and was uber shiny when I bought it, I thought it had potential. Plus, it reminded me of a similar style from Pottery Barn that costs a LOT more.




Being no stranger to spray paint, I headed to Lowes and picked up some metal spray-paint and primer. After mulling my options I ultimately decided on a dark brown color, which I thought would contrast nicely with the lighter wood cabinetry and whatnot.

When Mother Nature finally realized it was Spring, I headed out to our garage to get paintin'. First I wiped down the fixture and removed the glass bulb covers.



Then, I sprayed a layer of primer across the entire surface, making sure to spray in even strokes about a half-foot away from the fixture.







I then let it dry for a day or so to allow the primer to fully set. That, and Mother Nature had yet another mood swing that made it impossible for me to finish in the garage for at least another week. Unless I tried doing it in the basement, which is definitely not a good idea (trust me on this one, folks).

Otherwise I might have ended up like this dude. And we don't want that.



So anyway, where was I? Oh yes - so, after the primer had a chance to set, I finally got to do the fun part: spray it with the final color! The nice thing about using a white primer is that you can easily tell where you've missed a spot (or two).




Like the primer, I let it sit for a day to fully set. I then went at it with a second coat, mostly to even out any under-sprayed parts and fix any areas I missed.



Since I'm height-challenged and not the greatest with electrical work, I handed the honor of installing the light over to Brian. I was so stoked to finally have a nicer-looking light that was also a budget find.

That is, until I saw it on the wall. And realized there was something....off about it. Maybe it's the darker color (which I actually like - Brian's not that much of a fan, he claims it clashes too much with the rest of the kitchen), or the shine of the glass bulb shades, or the florescent bulbs themselves, but it doesn't look 100% right.

Light fixture spray paint, Spray painting a light fixture


........balderdash.

We'll leave it there for the time being, but in the meantime I'm going to brainstorm some other options that may work better in that space.

What do you think, fair readers? We can quite put our finger on it, and maybe an outside perspective would help point us in the right direction. I really don't want to give up on this fixture!

5 comments:

  1. What a change! Looks great!

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    1. Thanks - I'm still not quite sure about it (maybe I'm just being too picky) but it'll work for now. :)

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  3. I think it looks great! Have you considered changing out the glass globes. They sell them separately at places like Home Depot. I recently switched out the ones on my kitchen light fixture and it made a huge difference.

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    1. We did consider it (or at least spraying them with a glass spray-paint so they're not so reflective) but now that we've had some time to think it may just be that there's too many lights for the space. Definitely something to consider!

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