Adding a new lamp shade to an outdated, boring lamp that you already own is sometimes all it takes to reveal hidden potential!  These days, it’s all about working with what you’ve got!

Our friend Emily was in the market for new lamps, but when she saw these brushed nickel lamp bases at a yard sale, she knew they had potential! With their simple silhouette and improperly fitted shades, they left much to be desired, but she snatched them up for $5 each and came running to us for help! Emily trusted our expertise and handed these sad little lamps over to us for an extreme makeover, Shades of Light style!

We couldn’t help but get excited when we saw these lamps!  A basic table lamp base can be like the little black dress of home decorating…Just dying for some fabulous accessories!  We saw this as an instant opportunity to showcase our extensive collection of unique lamp shades and how they can add some major impact to your décor, without a major cost.

She sent us some pics of her ultra girly bedroom and we got right down to business.

We immediately knew that we wanted to pull another pattern into the room and thought that a more modern drum shade style could be a nice balance with the feminine style that the room possessed.  We sent her home with some lamp shade options to let her ultimately decide exactly what she would be most happy with.

We love the simple, yet updated style of our 15″ Patterned Fabric Drum Shades

Fabric Drum Shade-18 patterns

We offer them in loads of fun fabrics.  For Emily, we chose three fabric options: French Country Toile Drum Shade in Berry and Cream, Black and Cream Damask and also French Country Toile Drum Shade in Black and White.

Fabric Drum Shade-18 patterns

She ended up choosing the Black and White French Country Toile Drum Shade and we love the way that these black and white shades add graphic texture and contrast in her room!  Here is the final result…eye candy! Thanks to Emily for allowing us to help her with her lamp makeover!

We had so much fun with Emily’s makeover and we got a little carried away with the endless design options for these lamps, we couldn’t resist the urge to fantasize and play with some other accessorizing options and created our own little dream room, designed around these lamps!

Again, we paired them with our 15″ Patterned Fabric Drum Shade in Black and White Bamboo and added a funky Turquoise Metal Flower Finial for a little extra pizzazz!

16″ Patterned Fabric Shade, Metal Flower Petal Lamp Finial

This super fun combo was a showstopper when we placed it against our bright green wall (Sherwin Williams Parakeet SW6385) on a contrasting modern black table.

We decided to go a little further and really make this project our own (literally) by adding our sweet Monogrammed Paper Shades.  We offer the monograms in Four styles and Five colors.  Check them out below!

14″ Monogrammed Lampshade - Script, 14″ Monogrammed Lampshade - Curlz,
14″ Monogrammed Lampshade - Circle Monogram, 14″ Monogrammed Lampshade - Roman Block

Also visit our lamp shade section here to view other stylish lamp shades!