$3.00 Floor Lamp

Upon completion of the kitchen chair, I was armed with a new sense of purpose.

 I perused the pile of junk pieces that had begun to gather like an angry mob in the Yoga Room.

I mean, Yoga Room is a strong name for a room that functions more like an attic, a collection space for free shit that I acquire and intend to fix or restore 

My next project seemed to be a simple one.  I picked up a steel floor lamp with a bridge at a flea market.
Priced at $3.00, the only acceptable way to walk away was dragging a $3.00 cast iron floor lamp.

This is how I acquired it.

The first step was, naturally, to electrocute myself.

Beyond that, I replaced the wire and the bulb socket.  

The second thing I did was buy some powerful stripper at the Home Depot.  A grumpy, silent type thrust a can of paint stripper at me and suggested that I not get it on my skin.

Clearly, he has no idea who I am.  

I took it home and slathered it onto the stand with a cheap paint brush.  You really have never lived until you step barefoot into a puddle of paint thinner.

I discovered (while performing a very graceful pain dance) that the stand came apart (by which I mean, I knocked it over and the pieces came apart).  

Make sure you clean the stripper off before you paint.  Mineral spirits works well.  

With hind sight, I did not have to strip the blue paint off.  I could have sanded it down and painted right over it but, I wanted to see if the original metal could be restored.  The answer was, yes, it could but it would take more effort that I was willing to give it.

So, after the stripping effort some black spray paint renovated (not restored) the piece and I pretty much lost interest.  Still, vast improvement.