Updating a secondhand vase with paint

I’m not off to a great start with today’s post as I can’t find any ‘before’ photos despite having our swan vase for close to 6 years, it seems I’ve never taken a photo of it. I saw this swan vase in a charity shop years ago and bought it [probably for something like €5] because I’ve always liked swans and thought it had a really nice shape. Unfortunately, I only realised how aged and discoloured the vase was once I brought it home, but since I like swans so much, I kept it in our storage cupboard. For something like 6 years. 

Last weekend Robert bought me flowers and I went to our storage cupboard, picked up the swan vase, and as I was putting it back down as I’ve done so many times before, a thought popped into my head – what if I were to spray paint it black? Oh. Oh I like that idea.

I went for my can of Rust-Oleum’s chalkboard paint [this is not an ad – I’ve had this can for almost as long as my swan vase and I’m a genuine Rust-Oleum fan], put a plastic bag over my hand, held the vase upside down, put my hand in the vase and carefully spray painted thin layers onto the vase. I didn’t use a primer as I the paint adhered really well to the vase, but depending on the piece you’re painting, you may need to use a primer. I let the vase dry for at least an hour before using it to be sure the paint was completely dry.

I don’t know why it took me so long to paint it. I’ve always loved that vase, but the colour gave me such a stink-face every time I reached for it that I’m just glad I thought to paint it. There are many people who may say I’ve destroyed an old or vintage vase by painting it, and I’m okay with that, but I’m using it for the first time since I bought it so that’s a good decision in my books. 

Our secondhand Stokke crib

When I was putting together ideas for the nursery, one of the main pieces we needed was a crib. Cora’s room is quite small and whatever crib we picked would be a big deal, so I wanted to make sure it was something we really loved before getting one. We went to a lot of stores and looked at a lot of cribs, but my gut feeling was to see if we could find a secondhand crib. I wrote about it more in my Nearly New Wood Challenge a couple of years ago; how for the most part I’m not too keen on buying brand new furniture, especially wood. 
I spent a few days looking through the cribs available on Adverts.ie and that’s when I spotted a secondhand Stokke Sleepi crib in walnut. It was so different to any other crib we had seen that it immediately gave me heart-eye emojis. Before I replied to the ad I looked up more information on the Stokke Sleepi crib and my doubts were drowned out pretty much by how incredible it is. 

A couple of text messages later and a thorough cleaning, Cora’s new [to us] crib was home. We didn’t use the mini crib as it didn’t fit in our equally small bedroom. I don’t know if we’ll end up using the bed until Cora is 10 [though it’s a nice idea to not have to buy her a bed for 10 years], but being able to use the end pieces of the cot as chairs? Game changer. “Look how much use we can get out of it!” Robert didn’t need too much convincing TBH. 

We paid €200 for our secondhand Stokke Sleepi crib which was €20 over our budget. I didn’t have a problem going over budget as I thought it was just too good to pass on. It came with newborn and toddler conversion kits which if bought new, including kits it would altogether cost us over €1,000. That’s not why we bought it though. It’s a gorgeous solid walnut bed [and it looks like Stokke no longer sell it in walnut] with simple lines and a killer shape. And even better, for my conscious at least; it didn’t cost the earth. 

To find out more, you can check out my Nearly New Challenge and Nearly New Wood Challenge

Second hand love dove lamp

I’ve been dying to share my latest second hand find. This morning Cora was compliant enough to let me take some pictures [while she kicked around on our bed], and I was even able to get a bit of a blog post together too. I am feeling very together and boss-mom. For now. I suspect this is a fleeting feeling.

A week or so before Christmas I stopped into Second Abbey to see if the gloriously kitsch dove lamp I spotted months before was still there, and luckily, it was [I’ve had terrible luck lately with things I’ve not bought being long gone the next time I go back to buy them]. The lamp was in good condition [meaning, it wasn’t broken], but it was in need of new paint as it was yellowed and scratched, and a new shade was desperately needed [the current shade was transparent red ribbon wrapped around the wire and looked terrible when the light was on].

First I cleaned and repainted the doves with white furniture paint. Robert wasn’t too keen on the dove’s anatomically correct beady red eyes that looked directly into his soul, so I painted them white along with the rest of their bodies. Don’t worry, they’re just sleeping! Very in keeping with their new bedroom environment.

I next focused on updating the lamp shade. The shape of the original shade really didn’t suit the lamp. It was far too narrow and made the lamp look very bottom heavy, so on Monday evening I headed to B&Q with crazy lamp in hand and tried a bunch of shades for size. It came down to either a gold glitter lamp shade [which I was very in love with but it unfortunately gave off a very strange glow when the light was on], or a rectangular black shade. As you can guess, the black shade won. The shape is so perfect for the lamp – it’s hard to tell but the size of the shade perfectly balances the oblong lamp base and anchors all the crazy going on below. But the lamp’s update is not completely finished yet. Because our bedroom is painted nearly black, the black shade disappears into the background. I’m thinking of maybe re-covering the shade in a different fabric and adding sassy tassels, but I’m going to take my time and think about what colours and textures might suit it before rushing into anything.

Yeah, it takes up nearly my entire bedside table, but I give zero cares. I just look at how amazing it is and then I get over it.