Faux Aged Pottery Lamp DIY

When I saw the FARIS CERAMIC TABLE LAMP from Pottery Barn, I fell in love with the texture and shape… but the price tag was not in my budget. I’ve seen a ton of DIYers mixing paint and baking soda in order to create the look of pottery, so when I found a $5 lamp base at the thrift store, I decided to try it!

What you’ll need:

• Thrifted lamp

• Spray primer (I like Killz)

• Paint in the color of your choice (I used acrylic, but you could use house paint as well from what I’ve seen)

• Baking Soda

• Foam brush

• Sandpaper

• Blue tape & plastic bags to protect the hardware and cord

• Dirt

I started by sanding the lamp to give the paint something to adhere to. Then, I wiped it clean with a rag and taped off the hardware and cord to protect them. I primed the lamp first - for this project, I would have liked to use Killz but my spray can wasn’t working, so I used a spray chalk paint/primer I had in my stash.

Once it was dry, I mixed up my baking soda and paint. I found that a 1/1 ratio gave me a nice consistency. I used a foam brush for this so I could better control the texture and I liked the way it applied the paint. The coverage is amazing so I only needed one coat for full coverage.

I could have stoped there, but I wanted the lamp to look a bit more aged, so I mixed up some mud and slathered it onto the lamp once the paint had dried. Once the dirt had dried, I used a damp towel to remove most of the dirt, which left the lamp with a natural patina. If you do this, I HIGHLY recommend using a WET towel instead of a DAMP one. I started with too little water and I ended up taking off the paint in some sections. This ended up being a happy accident though, because I mixed up a thicker version of the baking soda paint to touch up (probably a 70/30 ratio) and it created even more texture and variation.

The last step was picking up a new lamp shade for $13, bringing the total cost for this lamp to $18! What I love most about this lamp is that the scale is perfect. Too often, we buy small lamps because of the small price tag and they never fill the space in the right way. Large lamps almost always look expensive because typically they are, so I love this hack to make them affordable.

Who doesn’t love high impact decor on a budget? Would you try this? I’m definitely doing this again very soon.