lantern makeover

Piece by piece my living room is coming together.  Normally I'm not this slow about decorating, but I want to make sure I love every element in this room.  Sometimes this means making an item over or waiting until I have enough money to buy what I really want.

Going through our spare bedroom which is filled with all my home decor that had more red, brown and tan undertones I saw my old lanterns that sat on our kitchen table in our old apartment.  These were a wedding gift and I've always loved them but the style just didn't fit in any room of the house anymore.  But I thought if I brightened them up they might work in our living room.

don't mind this ugly fireplace...it too will get it's own makeover one day!

So I went to Lowe's (we only go to Lowe's because it's down the street from our house, really we prefer Home Depot) and bought some silver metallic spraypaint.  I was a little skeptical of painting these old lanterns.  I wasn't sure if the paint was going to come out more gray than metallic or if it would stick and how I was going to work around all the glass.  I taped all of the glass off and just started spraying, right away I loved it.  I couldn't believe how shinny and pretty the paint looked.

I decided not to put the candles back in because they are really yellow looking, so I'm on the hunt for actual white candles.  But overall I think they turned out pretty well and look a lot lighter and more fresh!  Just don't look too close, I'm really impatient and can't wait for paint to dry and always take the tape off too early and muck things up.

Amazing what a little spray paint can do!