Embracing Spray Paint

After the success of the spray painted planters we did (see this post) and the lack of success of finding a couple of school house lamps for a decent price (seriously $85 without a shade at School House Electric?!), we decided it was time to take matters into our own hands.


The fixtures we had currently where ugly and out dated. A bright gold base with milky white, perfectly round globes that defiantly looked like a dollar bin grab circa 1991. This was all highlighted by the work we did updating the knobs, appliances, stools, and ceiling fan in modern stainless and brushed nickle. Needless to say these lights were not in their glory days.

The bases before... we didn't have a picture of the lights with the globes, but picture this...

Originally our idea was to change the gold over to brushed nickel like the rest of the metal appointments in the kitchen. But after thinking about it a bit more we decided that would wash out the ceiling to much (white ceiling, white globes, silver base.) Instead we opted for the very classic schoolhouse base metal: oil rubbed bronze. I've got to say the metallic spray paint is amazing, looks just like the real thing! It turned these cheap gold covered plastic bases into great looking, vintage metal bases. Now all that was left was the globes.


A while back we found a vintage school house globe at the flea market we frequent. It was perfect at $10 with the only issue being the singularity of it. We would have loved to pick up two of them, but we purchased it anyways and used it in our 1/2 bath. The search went on until we found some globes at Home depot for around $5 a pop. They are not as nice as the vintage one we found, but they match close enough and complete the look.

We were really happy with the contrast that the oil rubbed bronze added to the kitchen (Jon loves mixed metals.) In fact we are so happy that we decided to try and refinish our door handle and hinges with the same color! They are all currently still gold, but that project will be a later post.