Color is a wonderful thing…Sure, it can change the look of a room in a moment – But it can also change the way you FEEL in a room. That’s powerful stuff! I remember hearing once that Pizza Huts are often painted red on the inside because the color red makes people eat faster. Blue, on the other hand, tends to make people eat slower and linger longer. If you can control the way that people behave and react in a commercial setting, why not try it out at home!
This blog post is not about mind control, however…I just think that the concept is fascinating!!! Perhaps I’ll spend a 1,000-word post on the topic soon, but today I am going a simpler route.
As I said before, color is powerful…Sometimes it’s very obvious making a big splash, where other times it’s more subtle and subdued. Sometimes you don’t even NOTICE that a certain corner of your space needs color, but when you do happen to catch on it’s all you can think about. At least that’s what happened to me.
There was just something glaringly wrong with the picture below.
Here’s a slightly different angle…
You may have seen it – It’s SCREAMING at me…But to get to the point, I just couldn’t stop staring at the lamp and how “blah” it suddenly was! I don’t know if it was the bright yellow stencil wall or just the cream-on-cream of the base and the shade together, but it was buuuggggiiinngg me.
Something else wasn’t sitting with me either – The shade. I’m not a huge fan of standard lamp shades. For me, I usually go for 70s-style drum shades. So I made a quick trip to Target where I bought a new white lamp shade in a more mid-century shape.
We went from this:
To this:
Don’t worry…I saw it too…Definitely seems a little small for the lamp base 🙁 Luckily, I had a larger drum shade on hand!
You probably have a comment on that one though too…Sorta seems too BIG now! I was out of options, so the big one stayed. I will probably keep my eye out for a medium-sized shade in the near future…
But on to the issue of color.
When John and I found this lamp at Goodwill earlier this year, we initially planned to spray paint it. But for whatever reason, we liked the monochromatic look and it stayed as is. As the months went by though and a brighter color scheme started to emerge, the cream look was out and I was left wanting a bit more visual “oomph.” So I grabbed a can of yellow spray paint that I had sitting in the basement, taped off the exposed wire near the base and the lamp neck and then got to work transforming this little light fixture into something bold and beautiful.
One quick coat of paint later and we were good to go! I was sort of surprised that it only took the one coat, but I guess you don’t need much paint to cover beige.
It seems more 70s-esque to me, with its vibrant color and new contrast between the bright yellow lamp base and dark wooden neck.
From far back, you can see that the newly painted lamp brings that yellow pop from the wall into the once-quiet little corner.
Before…
And now after!
See?? Isn’t it amazing what a little color can do? 🙂
