Wooden Cable Reel to Table

A friend of mine who works at Lowe's claimed one of their left over cable reels and gave it to me for my birthday! I decided it would make a perfect table for our front porch. It's larger than the one we have now so we are more likely to use it and it makes more of a statement. I have it there now, but I can't decide if I should leave it as is, paint it, or stain it. 

Here it is now:

And here are a few images I found on Pinterest to give me some inspiration. Feel free to comment below and let me know what you think I should do.

Leave it natural?

~via~

Paint it white? light yellow to match the chairs? another fun color?

~via~

Stain it?

~via~

Paint just the top?

~via~

To find out what I ended up doing click here.

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Small Hand Painted Dark Green and White Monogrammed Latice Pillow Available in Other Colors

Same pillow design new color

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Special Date Lumbar Pillow with Name Painted on one side in elegant script and date painted on the other - Available in Other Colors

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Special Date Lumbar Pillow In Black and White - Available in Other Colors

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Covering a barrel shaped lampshade

I finally bought new lamp shades for our bedroom and covered them! I have been in search of decently priced white barrel lamp shades for a few months and when I was at Lowe's last week I came across the exact lamp shades I wanted priced at just $10! Turns out they were supposed to be marked at $15, but they had the wrong tag on them. Thankfully they honored the $10 price tag saving me $10! 

I already had the fabric I wanted to cover the shades with, which I bought at fabric.com. It's a green ikat print to tie in with the green on my bedroom dresser. 

What you need:

~hot glue gun

~glue sticks

~fabric

~scissors

~pins

~pencil

~lamp shade

~ruler

Here's how I made did it...

I laid the lamp shade on the fabric in the middle of the fabric about 5 inches from the top and rolled the shade as I lightly traced the curve it made with a pencil. I traced the curve several inches longer on each end to make sure I had enough left over to fold over at the end.

Then I cut the fabric out about 1 inch from the line I drew.

Next I wrapped the fabric around the shade and pinned the fabric tight around the shade.

Using my hot glue gun I glued the fabric to the bottom of the shade first by folding over the fabric about 1/2 inch so that the raw edge was no longer exposed. I left about 3 inches unglued at the seam of the shade.

Then I glued the fabric to the top of the shade. When I got to the metal rods I cut a 3/4'' slit in the fabric where the rods were. I left 3 inches at the seam unglued at the top as well.

I folded back the excess fabric on each side right over the shades seam line. Then using my 2 inch wide clear ruler I placed the ruler over the fabric with the middle of the ruler right over the seam line and drew a line on each side of the seam so it was 1 inch out on each side. 

I cut the fabric on the lines.

Glued down the first side.

I folded down the second side over the shade trying to make a straight line. I marked the fold by pressing it down until there was a visible fold line in the fabric.

Then I glued the ends to the insides of the frame.

Finally I glued down the outer seam and I was done!

And here is what they look like in our bedroom

 And here is the dresser they are supposed to tie in with.

And a quick little before and after shot with the bedroom before, the bedroom with the old lamp shades, and the bedroom with the new lamp shades:

I hope you enjoyed learning how to cover a barrel shaped lamp shade and I hope all of my directions made since. Feel free to ask questions if they don't and post pictures if you make your own!

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