Spray Painting Brass Lamps

Seriously.... is there anything better than spray paint?!!!

We've been in our "new" house for four (4) years now. It's still a work in progress. Heck... we just finished unpacking the last of our moving boxes a few weeks ago!!!  

(please don't judge me!)

In our family room, we had two small 60-watt lamps that, while cute, just didn't throw off enough light for reading (we are getting older!). I set out to find new lamps when I discovered that I we might just have the fix right here at home...

I remembered the two brass lamps (which I loved - everything but their awful color) in a box in our basement. We haven't used them in several years, since their appearance is so outdated.

Why not try spray painting them???  Let's face it.... if it turned out hideous, we weren't using them anyway, so we could throw them away. Right??!

Notice my two "helpers" in the background?

I did a bit of research and learned when you are spray painting brass, you definitely need to sand the material you are working with. Otherwise, the surface is too slippery for the paint to adhere to as needed.

Be sure to tape off your openings to the actual lights (I used paint tape)... you don't want any paint in there!

I used a fine-grit sand paper to scuff the surface. And surprisingly, it didn't take much time! After sanding and cleaning the dust off, I used Rust-Oleum Clean Metal Primer to prep it for painting.
 

With the primer (and the paint), keep in mind that a light touch is best. I spent about a 30 minutes on the priming phase. You want to use smooth, even strokes to make sure you don't have any drip marks, because that's quite unsightly! Give the it some time to adhere and continue working around the base.

When it was done, it looked like this: 

Primer phase

I have to admit, I thought they looked kind of amazing in white, but that wouldn't work for our family room. (SIGH). I moved on to the paint phase. Thankfully, there are so many great colors of spray paint!

In the Twin Cities, we are fortunate to have many home improvement stores. But honestly, I was a bit disappointed in the selection at Home Depot. They had so little selection!!  I went to Menard's and found so many awesome colors and finishes.

I used another Rust-Oleum paint for the finished product... a hammered finish. As with the primer, I worked SLOWLY around the bases, using a light touch again, so there were no drips.

Notice I sent the dogs INSIDE for this phase.

Be advised ... this is NOT a quick process... I let the primer dry nearly 24 hours before starting the painting process. And I found that you need to give it considerable time to dry to make sure you have the primer covered. I started this process in the early evening and thought I had everything covered. The next day, I found that wasn't the case, so I had to do another round of paint to finish the job. Perhaps different light helps? That's my thought...

You must also give the paint a good 24-48 hours to dry. 

When it was done, I was pleased.... the lamps were updated and looked SO good!!! Now I'm just trying to decide if they need new lampshades. Maybe a light gray? I'm not sure the linen color looks so good...


And for those of you family members.... yes, that is Grandma Hale's old side table. And yes.... it will have a makeover sometime soon. :-)

Overall, I was pleased with the outcome and will NOT be afraid to paint any brass in the future!


UPDATE! The old lampshades had to go... they were too dated for the more modern finish. Top that off with the amount of dust the fabric had accumulated while in the basement and it was easy to toss them in the garbage! I found some great, smooth-finished lampshades at Lowes which really modernize the lamps AND will be easy to clean.

Ta-Da!!!!!!!!  This project is officially finished.