LAMP REVAMP

I love the look of antique marble lamps, but in my thrift store hunts I haven't been able to find one. I began looking for one online, but can you imagine the shipping costs on a heavy marble lamp?! Plus I've been spoiled by thrift store and flea market prices. Speaking of the flea market, I already have a lamp!

Oh wow. It's worse than I thought. But look at the shape. Can you imagine it carved out of marble or alabaster rather than plaster coated in chippy green paint? Me too. So I got to work on turning this flea market funky, into a glorious faux marble lamp. 

I've been asked on many occasions what type of paint I use for small projects, furniture, anything. The truth is I don't have much of a preference other than it's usually cheap. I scour the oops paint section of many stores and have built up quite the supply. This one happened to be a $2 oops paint from HD. Works just as well as any other. 

So I coated the lamp with 2 coats of pure white and got even coverage. I was careful to not have brush marks, as this would kill the illusion of marble. 

I whipped out some cheap craft store paint in black and white and mixed together a few shades that looked about right. Acrylic craft paint is fine for small projects like this, just make sure you don't use gloss over flat, it will make the areas you painted stick out like a sore thumb.

I grabbed up my thinnest paint brushes so I could make the marble veins as realistic as possible. 

Just a little patience and I threw some sporadic grey lines on it. Blended it with some of the white to make it fade out. I didn't have any marble for reference, so I did a bit of research and found reference images online.

Even though the lines were right something was missing. What was it? Shine! It was still really flat.

I used the last of my wax, but I couldn't wait to make this look right. So I found some Howard's Feed-N-Wax and wiped it on. I think it turned out quite lovely. Now I just have to find the right shade. Maybe that's easier said than done.