I’ve been making lamps from unpainted scrap wood, but I discovered I had a lot of primed or painted wood sitting around. So, I decided I should see what a lamp would look like painted.
One of the things I learned doing this project is the way different kinds of wood feel when doing exactly the same project. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what kind of wood I’m using the original lamp design — it’s just some old scrap that I pulled out of the house when we were remodeling it.
This new white lamp is made from leftover cedar that we got for trim on the outside of the house. It’s much lighter weight, but it also cuts much more smoothly than the older reclaimed wood.
I also discovered how much I hate painting wood for lamps. the detail is tricky, the paint takes forever to dry, and I can’t seem to keep the brush marks from showing up, so while it’s a much more sophisticated, feminine lamp, it still has a roughness that lets you know this isn’t some IKEA product.
Here’s a quick video I did describing the process of building this lamp: