About 6 months ago I got an idea - recover! I went out right away and found an awesome back and white print (Waverly, Coral Sea) with some contrasting texture and then those poor lamps sat there un-matching for another 6 months until I finally got my act together last week.
I didn't really have a plan other than "get the fabric on the shade," but that doesn't usually stop me. So, in an effort to get some projects finally crossed off my list I grabbed my scissors, spray adhesive and glue and jumped in!
The whole process was relatively easy and quick, but there were definitely some tricks. First being, get a fabric pattern where direction doesn't matter. Because of the conical structure of the lampshade, anything with too much of a vertical or horizontal pattern will get "warped" and not match up when you wrap it around. There probably is some easy and smart way to fix that, but I couldn't come up with it off-hand, and thankfully didn't have to because I lucked into buying a kind of swirly non-directional material.
I started by just draping the fabric over the lampshade to make sure I had enough and to roughly measure where to cut.
Next, I made a nice, straight cut on one edge with my rotary cutter...
Then, I lined up the edge of my material with the seam of the old lampshade fabric, gave the lampshade a good spray with my spray adhesive and started rolling, smoothing and spraying some more adhesive around the shade.
Another tip: Start by placing the lampshade fairly close to the bottom of the material. As you spray and roll, the shade will travel in an upward arc across the material and you are liable to run out of material if you start in the middle. Never fear though because the adhesive is removable, so you can just peel it off and try again if your placement doesn't quite work.
Also, be sure to put down newspapers and get anything that you don't want sticky out of the way when you spray the adhesive. It seems like it goes right where you spray it until later when you realize that your scissors, ruler and cutting mat are all tacky...
Make sure the fabric is nice and smooth! It's looking pretty good now right?
Next, I cut the excess fabric off on the inside about an inch and a half from the edge of the shade on both ends.
It also helps with smooth-ness to clip around the inside.
Finally, start gluing down the inside overhang with fabric glue. It's kind of hard to see below, but I just folded over the fabric and spread a bead of glue over the cut edge. I also made sure to clip an opening around the lampshade supports and glue securely around those as well. Warning: This can be a little messy...
So, as I mentioned before, when the fabric wraps around the conical lampshade it will start to get a little wonky due to the differing circumferences of the top and bottom of the shade. This will leave a triangle of material that hangs over once you have covered the shade. To take care of this, I simply cut it off straight up the seam leaving about and inch allowance.
Then, I folded it about a half and inch under and glued it down the seam being careful overlap the edge where I started wrapping.
And here it is, good as new...
And, FINALLY, our cool little lamps fit in again and all is right with the room... until I get another bright design idea... :)
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