Updated Rattan Wicker Lamp

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This updated Rattan Wicker Lamp project is a fun and easy project to kick off the year. I bought this lamp at my local thrift store years ago for only $1. At the time I painted it to give it a driftwood vibe, but with the new year I want to update it and try to bring it back to a more natural rattan look. I love how it turned out!

Let me show you how it started though. The lamp was ready for a change.

Bleaching Rattan

Now my original plan was to try and bleach the wicker back to his original glory. I lightly sanded the wicker, wiped it down, and then sprayed it with a 1:1 mixture of bleach and water. I let it sit in the sun for about 30 minutes before reapplying a second coating. I let it sit for another 30 minutes before I was convinced that my brilliant plan wasn’t working… time to pivot.

Now my guess is that it wasn’t bleaching because it had paint still on it, but I can’t be 100% sure on that.

Spray Stain to the Rescue

So I rummaged through my supplies and found some spray stain. I figured I had nothing to lose. So once I was sure that my lamp had completely dried I gave the lamp a nice, light coat of the spray stain.

I instantly knew this was going to work. It covered the paint beautiful and brought my rattan wicker lamp back to a more natural look.

It only took that one, light coat of stain to get this gorgeous, rich brown tone. I was so pleased! Now my original plan for a wood tone that was slightly lighter than this, but I was overall so happy how the rattan lamps turned out. It adds some warmth to our family room, which is what I was hoping for with this rattan table lamp. I added back the natural white shade to finish it off.

Maybe next month I’ll find something that will bleach, but I’m glad my pivoting working.

Supplies Used

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• sandpaper
• spray stain

Thrift Store Makeover for the New Year

Now make sure to check all these amazing thrift store makeovers from the team.