Rescuing a Lamp

Edit:
Welcome to all those who are visiting from Infarrantly Creative's Roadkill Rescue party:


How saving a lamp from the dump, gave me the courage to fix up another two lamps.

It was one of those days. My little girl was still sick from her flu, and we've been stuck at home for the 5th day in a row.
"Let's just go for a drive. I'll get Tim Horton's coffee at the drive-through, and you can listen to Me First and the Gimme Gimmes", I said.
"Yes!!", said the little one, sniffling into her tissue paper.

We were barely out of our neighborhood, when my daughter exclaimed. "Look mum! They throwing out stuff that is good!". (The day before, I have been explaining to my daughter that it is better to drop stuff off at Salvation Army for others to use, rather than to throw things out.)

I glanced over, and saw the lamp standing at the side of the road, surrounded by bags of garbage and boxes of recyclables. At the other end of the street, the garbage truck was making it's way over.
That's how I ended up with this lamp:

It was actually worked perfectly. There was just a slight tear on the lamp shade.

We discovered that the torn fabric on the lampshade peeled off easily:
Using my current favorite fabric, I traced out the lampshade, cut out the shape, and using a light layer of mod podge, I glued on the fabric:

I cut off the excess fabric, and used hot glue to attach some trim on the top and bottom edges of the lampshade:


Turns out I had to paint over the white metal with some spray paint, because the white just did not fit in my house. I must say, for something that was going to be trashed the day before, the lamp looks rather spiffy in my living room.

I was so pleased with how easy that makeover was, that I finally tackled the lamp that my friend, Steph, gave to me. "Your next project", she said.
I knew the history of her lamp, and I was to nervous to tackle any recovery projects with that lamp. What if I messed it up? So, it sat in my basement for over a month.
Before:
After:
It now sits proudly on top of my piano.

Finally, I fixed the busted lampshade in my dining room. It had been broken for 2 years now. I just turned it around so that no one could tell. I know, terrible :)

Before:
After:
Oh, I was tempted to use the same fabric, I tell ya! However, sanity won over, and I used something complementary instead. I'm not so sure about the trim I used at the bottom of this one. I may rip it out and attach some hanging pompom trim instead. That may give the fabric more coverage. Maybe this time it won't take me two years to fix it.

All in all, I'm glad that first lamp caught my daughter's attention.