More Living Room Ideas ~ Update Lamps

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I have another update from our living room re-do for you today. I have tons of living room ideas for our house that I’m trying to implement as I can save money and find time to get them done. The living room was seriously outdated and needed help. Little by little I’m making progress and I’m loving the results. Today, I wanted to show you a simple update that I think makes a big difference. I freshened up our lamps.

I have had the same lamps and lamp shades for at least 8 years now. It may be more. I’m a little confused about what we bought here and what we bought in our last house. Anyway, it was long past time for new lamps and/or lamp shades.

I’m sure you’ve noticed but lamps and lamps shades are not exactly cheap. I figured out how to make this update in our living room and I spent a little over $100. I realized that isn’t exactly cheap, but is certainly was less expensive than replacing all the lamps and I still feel like the money I spent helped update the room. 

These are the lamps and lamp shades that were on this side of the room. They were fine, but getting a bit outdated and maybe a touch small for the space.

Now with my lamp updates, this side of the room looks like this. Don’t you think it helps update the room? I totally do and yes, I know I still need artwork above the couch. It is on the to-do list…just have to find the time.

To save some money, I kept this lamp but changed out the lamp shade. I also purchased my lamp shades and the lamps I did replace at IKEA. I love their prices. Works for my budget. I don’t love that we don’t have one here, but we were near one when we went to the American Girl Doll store last month, so I made time for a little IKEA trip for Mommy. 🙂

I love the details on this lamp shade. I actually have the same lamp shade on the lamp on my desk as well. The drum style lamp shade is more up to date than those that were on my lamps. It is also larger and gives the lamps a little more presence and weight in the room. I did not change out this lamp. Maybe someday I will, but for the budget I had, I had to make choices.

This was were I chose to spend a little more money. I have looked at these style lamps for quite a while. I really like them. This lamp and lamp shade was about $60 of the $100 I spent. Totally worth it. I love it!

I don’t love that I just found the cord chewed in half last night! Boo! The dog likes to sit in the space between the chair and couch and chew on her toy. I guess the cord was under the toy and she chewed it into lots of little bits. Thank goodness the electricity was off to the cord at the time! I guess I have another project for this weekend…to re-wire the lamp.

Isn’t she gorgeous? I really am happy with my replacement of this lamp. It looks so great!

Over in our school area(this area is at the end of the room opposite the bookcases), I have a lamp on the bar that is open to the kitchen. It needed some freshening up as well.

I chose to buy a new lamp for this area as well as a new lamp shade. I really like the new look.

This is a picture from my summer mantel post. You can see that I have a lamp on our mantel. Our living room can be dark, so I have 4 lamps in the room. As much as I would love to get rid of this one, we really need it. I tried to update this one as well, but this lamp would not cooperate AT ALL. I tried multiple new lamp shades on it and none of them would fit or work. I will have to try again on this one. Next time Mr. T is working near an IKEA, he will run in and return the extra things as well as pick up a new lamp for the mantel. I’m thinking of doing the same lamp I bought for our little bar area but maybe with the lamp shade that has the gray stitching on it.

On this side of the room, you can see the small and outdated lamp shade on the floor lamp. The furniture got moved around a bit in my entertainment center update so this side of the room looks a little different now.

I added a new lamp shade to the existing floor lamp. It is a plain white drum shade.

You can see the larger chair here with the lamp. This lamp just doesn’t seem quite right to me. I think I need to return this lamp shade and get a larger shade. What do you think? It just seems like a larger shade would make the lamp look better in the space and match the height. Then again, maybe it will be too big and look funny on the narrow floor lamp. I can’t replace the floor lamp right now, so I need to work with what I’ve got. Let me know what you think. I’ve got a little bit of time before Mr. T will be near IKEA again, so I can figure it out and make sure he gets the right thing.

What do you think? $100+ well spent on an update in our living room? Do you think I should do a different larger  lamp shade on the floor lamp or stick with the one I just bought?

I’ve got a whole Pinterest board of decorating ideas. Click here to follow this board on Pinterest.
Follow The Real Thing with the Coake Family’s board Real Decorating on Pinterest.

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