Colourful Spray Painted Upcycled floor lamp

How to upcycle an old floor lamp with spray paints into a colourful statement piece.

I love a rainbow and I wanted a bright colourful rainbow lamp for my home. Using spray paints was an easy way to update an old lampshade without having to do any sewing or decoupage.

This project was so easy and didn’t require any specialist skills; as long as you can shake a can of spray paint you can revamp a lamp. It is really quick too.

I picked up this floor lamp really cheaply from my local auction house. I wasn’t sure if it worked, that didn’t matter as this was a rather old lamp I changed the electrics anyway, just to be on the safe side.

Updating the electricity on an old lamp is pretty straightforward. All the stuff you need to do this electrical update can be bought from your local DIY store or online. It is as easy as changing a plug.

You may be lucky and pick up a floor lamp that has had its electrics updated recently.

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What You Need For A Spray Painted Upcycled floor lamp

• Old floor lamp – If you don’t have one they can often be easily found at junk shops, thrift stores and garage sales.
• Selection of colourful spray paints. I used a copper spray paint for the base of my lamp and the inside of the shade. The lamp shade was in 8 sections so I decided to paint each section a different colour to obtain a rainbow effect.
• Newspaper and masking tape
• Yarn in rainbow colours for making a pompom trim.

How To Upcycle A Floor Lamp

1.. Take the lamp apart to upcycle it. This will involve removing the lampshade. Then unscrewing the stand from the wooden base. And removing the fringe trim.

2. First, spray paint both the wooden stand and the base of the lamp in copper. Mask off a central bit of the lamp with tape and spray paint rainbow stripes to match the upcycled lampshade.

3. Next, to help with even the colour shine, I spray painted the inside of the lampshade with two coats of copper paint.

4. As soon as the paint on the inside of the lampshade had dried, I covered it with masking tape and newspaper. This was to protect the paint when spraying the outside.

5. The lampshade was divided into eight distinct sections, which gave me the idea of painting a rainbow. I spray painted each section of the lampshade in a different colour of the rainbow. I made sure that the bits not being sprayed with a particular colour were well covered up with newspaper and masking tape.

Top tip: If you are not into rainbows, you can paint the lampshade all one colour or two stripes.

Triming the lamp

6. Next, I divided the fringe trim I had removed from the lampshade into eight equal sections. I then spray painted each of the sections the same colours as the upcycled lamp in the same order on the shade.

7. Then I with the rainbow yarn I made 2 coloured pom-poms for each section of the spray-painted lampshade to match the colours. So that was 16 pom-poms in total. I have an easy tutorial for making pom-poms here.

8. Next, reattach the fringe trim and pom-poms to the spray-painted lampshade using a hot glue gun.

Finshing The Upcycled Floor Lamp

9. To finish off, rewire the floor lamp with a kit if the original wiring is very old and potentially dangerous. Just follow the instructions that come with the kit, it is just like changing a plug. Then put the floor lamp stand back into the base and add the decorated lampshade.

Before I started this project I had no idea how my upcycled floor lamp would turn out. I had never spray painted fabric like this before but felt I had to try it as it was the only way I was going to achieve the bright rainbow effect.

As you can see it worked out really well, I love my new floor lamp and the pop of colour it now brings to the room.

There are many other ways to upcycle floor lamps besides using paints. I have upcycled a similar lamp with denim and maps which is probably one of my favourite pieces of furniture in my house.

A really easy way to upcycle lamps to match your decor is to make wallpaper lamps.

To compliment the lamp I have also made a gorgeous rainbow DIY pom-pom flower decoration. You might want to check out my other ideas for rainbow home decor or these upcycled map lighting ideas.

For more floor lamp makeovers, check out these IKEA upcycled lamps and this amazing giant fish IKEA floor lamp hack.