Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Vintage Lamp Redux







One of our favorite experiences is when we are driving through some small town and we run across an Antique Store. One Sunday mid-afternoon, we were in the town of Berlin, WI. We were on the main street and out of the corner of my eye I saw a store window filled with cool, vintage items. So we made a quick U-turn and crossed our fingers they would be open. To our luck they were open. 

The place was huge and filled to the brim with antiques and vintage items. In some places there were so many things we could not easily get to them. We love these kinds of places because you sometimes have to dig a little to find a treasure. We walked around and did some digging and found two cool 50's pink lamp bases. There were no shades or wiring. The price was reasonable $25 for the pair. We thought this was a project we could handle and that these lamps would look great in our Pink Christmas decorating scheme. The owner gave us a little bit more of a discount and I think we only ended up paying about $20 for the pair. 




They were in good shape, not chips or cracks so we were pretty excited about them. Once we got them home and cleaned them up the next step was to figure out what kind of shades we wanted for them. 

We looked on the Moon Shine Lamp and Shade website. So many choices!! I am a sucker for the two and three tiered lamp shades so I was leaning towards that right out of the gate. I knew I wanted pink shades as well. We choose the Corina style of shade in Pink. You can also get a pattern on the shade and I picked the Harmony pattern. I thought I was picking it for each part of the shade but I didn't. So when we got them, they had plain pink on two parts and the Harmony pattern on the outer ring. At first I wasn't happy about it, but then I decided that having the pattern overall might have been too much. 

The shades took about six weeks to get. The website tells you the size harp you need. For our shade, it was 9 inches. When we went looking for harps, we could not find a 9 inch harp. So we decided to wait until we got the shades to see if the 10 inch harp that we could find would work. The shades came in a huge box. They were $60 to ship and I can see why. We did some measuring with the shades and decided that the 10 inch harps would work. We went to Menards, our local hardware store, and picked up the lamp kit. It all seemed easy enough looking at the directions.




We got home and started to assemble the lamps. We had an issue with being able to tighten the rod that holds the cord and hardware in place at the top of the lamp base. The washer on the inside of the lamp would not tighten. When we took a flashlight and looked inside we could see that there were ceramic bits that were stuck to the top of the base and that is why it would not tighten down. So we took a foam type washer and added it to the metal washer and that gave it enough give to tighten down. Once that was accomplished assembly was pretty easy. It was about a 2 hour project and we are very happy with the outcome. 




The price breakdown was as follows: Lamp Bases - $20, Shades - $236, Shipping for shades - $60, Lamp Kit, rod and parts - $45 Total - $361. I am not sure I would have paid $361 for the pair had I seen them in an Antique store. But it is all about the journey and we really enjoyed the process and the outcome. We had them done in time to put out with our Pink Aluminum Christmas tree and all the other Pink Christmas decorations, so for us that was the icing on the cake. 

We wish everyone a wonderful 2014 and Happy Hunting! 
Rebecca