I don’t think I share enough of my project fails with you. Not that I have a ton of them, but when they do occur, I’m usually discouraged and it hardly seems worth the effort to put together a post about it.
But I don’t want to give off the impression that everything happens without incident around here, so here’s my latest fail.
When we remodeled our bathroom, I chose these vintage-style sconces. They were from Lowe’s and budget-priced at $30 each (although I don’t think they sell them anymore). But I still find myself lusting after fancier, pricier painted shade sconces such as those at Schoolhouse Electric.
Photos: Schoolhouse Electric
I even considered purchasing replacement shades for the existing sconces just to give them a bit more style, but who knows if they would actually fit in the fixtures correctly. Plus even that option would have me spending an unnecessary $70+.
And then I had a giant “duh” moment: I could just paint the shades I already had!
After removing the shades and washing them in some soapy water, I cleaned them with rubbing alcohol (per the instructions on the bottle of craft paint).
Then I taped off my first stripe. It took a while because I was trying to match the decorative edges in the shade.
After burnishing the edges of the tape down, I painted the exposed area with three thin coats of glossy craft paint.
When the paint was dry, I peeled off the tape and… bleh. Not only did the paint bleed a little under the tape, the stripe just looked heavy and sloppy. I had planned to do a second thinner stripe, but just scrapped the entire project once I saw the results of the first. Project fail.
Luckily, craft paint is pretty easy to clean off glass, especially when it’s fresh. I soaked the shades in some hot water for a while.
And most of the paint scraped right off without much effort. I did have to scrub a bit to get the last little bits off, but they cleaned up completely. And we’re back to where we started. Hmph.
Maybe with a black paint marker you could just do two thin stripes by following along (by hand) in the grooves that are already there? They are very simple and classic as is (which can be hard to find at an affordable price point so good picking!)
I think I’m giving up on paint for these shades. Partly because I don’t think I could get the lines to look sharp enough to fool anyone. Also, I think the paint probably would look best on opaque shades, and well, these aren’t.
But yes, I lucked out finding these fixtures for such a reasonable price! Lighting is expensive!
I think they’re quite beautiful the way they are! You definitely got lucky getting these awesome lighting fixtures!
Thanks, I do still like them! Just like the painted shades a little better. Ha!