Light Reno Project

Remember these pendant lights? While the boys have been hard at work installing our (amazing) new floors, I worked on my own little side project this weekend--giving a new look to the industrial pendant lamps hanging in the family room.

Raf is not such a fan and has been dying to get rid of them, but I can't imagine what we'd replace them with. The only pendants I've seen that have caught my attention are at Ikea. They're a cooler shape, but other than that, the only difference is that they're a metallic color, rather than white--and I'm really not stoked on the idea of shelling out money on new lights that are almost the same darn thing.

So, I proposed that I simply add a new coat of paint. Raf was skeptical (read: totally pessimistic and mean), but I decided it was worth a Sunday to give it a shot.

Here's what I was working with:
I disassembled all the little pieces, cleaned them up, then it was off to Lowe's to find a cool spray paint color.

Here's my fancy workspace. This was the one and only time I've appreciated all the crap in our driveway. Here I'm using a box on top of the dead dryer to work at the perfect height.

My resourceful setup for painting the cords:
Here they are drying between coats--fun, eh?!

I came home with 3 metallic color options--one was vetoed immediately, the other 2 I tested side-by-side. The winner: Valspar Lacquer Hi-Gloss in Aluminum. The darker color I ended up using on the cords, so they weren't the same color as the lights: Valspar Metal Premium Enamel in Graphite.

I put a good 3 coats inside and out, and this is what I came up with. What do you think? The best news: Raf ate his words--he actually likes them!
This was my first time using spray paint. It's a bit challenging to get the hang of, but by the end of the project, I was sold. I want to spray paint everything now!

Two lessons learned:

1. Take note of how you disassemble things. Chances are you won't remember how it was put together in the first place--which makes for way more stress than necessary when you want to get stuff put back together. (We are SO bad at this!)
2. Primer, Primer, Primer! The spray instructions said I would only need primer for raw metal. The lights were painted, so I figured I was safe. Nope. They were all kinds of scratched up by the time they were finished being hung. In the future, I'll always primer. Always.

Now I just need to get some dimmable lights in these puppies. The constant flickering is going to give me a seizure one of these days.