Turn Old Lamps Into Candlesticks

I absolutely hate collecting trash, having it find itself to my storage somehow and not knowing what the heck to do with it. Literally.

So, I'm not one to dumpster dive, but about two or so years ago I happened to be driving by a dumpster at my old apartment building and found these....

(I promise they were on the side of the dumpster, not in them...luckily)

Wow, had they seen better days but I don't know what possessed me, I hopped out of my car, ran, grabbed them, threw them in the back seat, looked around and made sure no one saw me (aside from the small old guy that pleasantly waived)...then high tailed it out of there. Once I got them in the apartment, I looked at them and sighed...just what was I thinking? I humiliated myself over pieces of junk; there was more than one reason why they found themselves in the garbage.

As you can see, they were chipped all over, the top was loose and non fixable, and the darn things didn't even work. I knew I could spray paint them and hook up a new lamp kit but I didn't really care at the time. So somehow they stuck with me through three moves later.

I was driving home one day, in traffic....so of course thats where I get my best ideas, which inevitably makes the traffic worse because I'm impatient and want to get started on said ideas ASAP. Anyway...I thought of a plan for these beauties.

First I started taking them apart. Pulling out the cord, unscrewing everything to find that the whole lamp was held together with one small little bar:

I took this out.....and everything came tumbling down. Doh!

Luckily I had the other lamp to reference to put all the pieces back together again w/o the middle bar. Instead I just glued all the right parts to each other, apart from the top portion (for reasons you will see later):

So, a little more glue and a few sprays of oil bronzed paint later, I finally found a home for my little dumpster treasures:

They then had a small little photo shoot cuz I was so proud. I mean goodness....2 1/2 years will do that to a girl.

For inspiration visit these ladies at their wonderful parties.....
Kimba @ A Soft Place To Land
Kimm @ Reinvented
Sarah @ Thrifty Decor Chick
Becky @ Beyond The Picket Fence