I’m a gal who does a lot of decorating, and most of my decor comes from thrift stores. (You can see one of my fave thrift store shopping sprees here.) Thrift stores are a fantastic place to find cheap decor. If you can get a bit creative and think outside of the box, you can create really unique pieces for your home.

My latest find at the local thrift store was a little $3 lamp. It needed a lot of TLC, but I saw the potential. Here’s what I did with my little thrift store lamp:

It didn’t start out as much. It had a dingy white base with a terrifyingly gross pleather lamp shade.

I liked the shape though, and knew that with some spray paint and a new shade I could easily transform it.

First, I took the lamp base outside, taped off the electrical parts, and spray painted it with a chrome silver.

The chrome silver spray paint was perfect. It gave it the perfect finish and really modernized it.

However, when I added the plain white drum shade to the lamp base, I thought it needed a little extra oomph. That’s when the idea for the black trim came to mind.

I used plain black satin ribbon from a craft store. I hot glued the trim on the top and bottom of the shade, and the lamp was instantly taken from Plain Jane to AWESOME!

The whole project took less than 30 minutes, and my little $3 thrift store lamp has been transformed into a high-style lamp you would find in any home store for about $40-$50!

 It fits perfectly into my home office on my black dining table I repurposed into a desk!