The Steen Style

Well whoopsy-daisies! Earlier today this post published but I hadn’t included any words. I had planned on writing them later in the day yesterday but then we had family and friends over for dinner and never got a chance. Hello Monday! Lets do this again, shall we?

This is the buffet in our dining room. The walls still need to be painted, artwork needs to be hung and Memaw’s chairs need to be recovered. Whew! What a list. The easiest thing to do though to make it look a little better? Cover those lampshades. The shade on the left got discolored in our old house because it was up against a window and the sun changed its color. Awesome!

I had about an hour to spare before our company came over and I wasn’t interested in any of the teams that were playing on TV, so I crafted! That’s normal, right? 🙂 I had this fabric leftover from the cedar chest makeover in our bedroom – it was just enough and worked perfectly!

I started by cutting the piece of fabric into two long strips, making sure they were wide enough to cover and wrap both sides of the shade. Once that was done, I used a hot glue gun to make a strip of glue along the seam of the shade. I didn’t want to use a ton of glue since this is something I can change very easily when I get sick of the pattern/color!

I rolled the shade in the fabric and cut off the excess on the end. The only other glue I used on the outside of the shade was to hold the second side down on top of the seam. Does that make sense? I don’t know how to write it any other way, so hopefully you get the idea. Glue, roll, glue again.

I then folded the sides and glued the seam down on the inside of the shade. I did the same thing here and used the hot glue as sparingly as possible. I didn’t want it to be seen and/or hard to get the fabric off!

The only problem spot during the whole project was the top of the shade. The chrome ‘spokes’ made it harder to continue the folding and gluing that was happening with the excess fabric. To help, I simply cut a little slit in the fabric and folded it around each metal piece. While it was annoying at first, it actually made it easier to work with the fabric when it was in smaller sections!

Here is the finished product! I am so happy with it plus the fact that it only took about 20 minutes was a huge bonus. I’m still gathering supplies to make my art for this area so for now, the grey ‘chipper’ pattern really brightens up this buffet.

While the sun-washed shade isn’t still completely gone, at least it isn’t as noticeable now! It was a very easy project and makes me want to cover other shades in our house. What about you? Have you ever done this? Using trim just around the edges is another way to spice up a plain shade – maybe I’ll try that next!