Lamp upcycling by @victoria_road_restoration

Lucy at @victoria_road_restoration loves to showcase her home renovation and clever ideas to make the most of her beautiful home. Here, she shares some of her innovative yet achievable ideas. 

What’s the best way to create a personalised, fun interior? The answer, upcycling! DIY projects around your home can help you create a truly unique interior completely personal to you.  

Upcycling is a huge passion of mine; I’ve updated everything from lamps, tables, drawers and even made my other half a fancy booze cabinet to house his whisky collection.  

 

There are many different ways you can upcycle, a simple lick of paint can transform a tired piece of furniture or you can go all out and completely remodel an item into something new. We made our dining table out of old roof timbers.  

One of my absolute favourite upcycling techniques is gold leaf. Super easy to do and there is literally nothing you can’t gold leaf; stairs, drawers, cabinet or even the ceiling!  

 

I had a lamp knocking around for ages but the chrome really isn’t my vibe, the shape is super cool and I knew I could easily make it into something special with my gold leaf kit.  

 

If you want to give it a go I’ll talk you through how you can gold leaf;  

 

1. First clean the surface you want to gold leaf removing any dust and grease  

2. Coat the surface with Size, a specific gold leaf glue easily sourced online  

3. Leave the Size to go tacky; 20 minutes should do if you’re in a hurry but you can leave for up to 24 hours just as long as it’s still tacky 

4. Take the sheets of gold leaf and lay them over the surface, don’t be afraid to overlap 

5. Once all the gold leaf is on take a cotton cloth or wear a pair of cotton gloves and remove the excess and buff the gold leaf until it's nice and shiny 

6. If you’re gold leafing a table top or a piece of furniture that might get scuffed or scratched you can coat it with a varnish to seal and protect it 

If you like the look of my lamp but don’t fancy upcycling I’ve scoured the La Redoute website to find my top picks of gold lamps;  

 

I love this quirky palm floor lamp