the look for less: lamp lovely!

a big priority for my living room/den revamp was some new lamps! firstly, so that i could stop using the overly bright actually-meant-to-be-the-dining-room overhead fixture & secondly, i wanted a matching pair to bring in some symmetry to my typically rather eclectic home.

what i wanted to purchase were these lamps from target:
although i swear in the store they were the perfect shade of green... maybe i'm thinking of these:
either way, unfortunately, they were $50.
EACH.
deal breaker.

so what i did purchase were these huge, terrifyingly brassy wonders.
do you ever see someone walking out of goodwill with something completely crazy? and you start wondering what on earth they are going to do with that item & why on earth they could possibly want to part with any amount of money for them?

yeah. that's pretty much what i think people were thinking as i walked to the car with one of these huge gals under each arm [& a giant smile on my face!]. they're seriously ginormous- did you see my sunglasses up there hiding in the shadow of their enormity?
but at goodwill they were much more my price range... $6 EACH. i won't even try to describe the sound my husband made when i walked through the door with these wonders. the very first thing i said was, "don't worry, they're not going to stay this way!" and thankfully, i had a vision...

the vision is always easier than the actual execution. i spray painted them in the basement when they were really cold, with no primer, & they did crackle up quite a little bit. it was really frustrating, but i've learned my lesson- always always always prime when the thing you're spray painting is anything besides wood! [if it's made out of wood, chances are i'm going to distress the heck out of it anyways.]
so with a bit of grumbling i sanded them smooth again, primed, & re-spray painted. annoying, but luckily not too much of a tragedy!
this is a true likeness of the color in the daylight- rustoleum's satin eden which i LOVE. i've literally had to resist painting everything in our house this color. i happened to have some thick grosgrain ribbon in the same shade of green, & hot-glued it to 2 drum shades from our old lamps & it was just the perfect match. they're exactly what i wanted, and quite the steal at just $6 each!
i have to say too that i was greatly underestimating the effect of lighting on the 'feel' of a room. i've always hated the dark cave feeling of this room with its no windows & cheapo builder light fixture. i tried to play up the purposeful-ness of that by making the room our movie watching den, where you want it a little dark anyway, but the addition of a huge mirror and these 2 lamps
completely changes the mood! now it has a snuggly warm glowy feeling to it rather than a stark ill-lit feeling. a major difference, & i couldn't be happier!