Last summer I was at a Flea Market and spotted a large almost 4 foot tall wood lighthouse. It had a broken light fixture at the top and all of the natural colored wood was scratched up. It needed a lot of work…but that’s why I was able to purchase it for only $5.00. We decorate our home in the coastal cottage style and I knew my wife would love this once I refinished it.
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The first thing I did was remove all of the old electrical wiring and light. I purchased a new one from Amazon as a replacement part. I then took my palm sander and some sand paper and smoothed out all of the scratches as well as removed the old finish. I knew my wife wouldn’t like the natural wood color. It took me 2 weekends to get it completely sanded due to all of the shelves, nooks and crannies. After sanding…gave it a good dusting to prep it for painting.
For the majority of the painting I used my paint sprayer to apply white paint. It’s not a blinding, stark white…more of an eggshell. I used a small paint brush to get into some of the smaller areas. It took 2 coats of paint to get a good even coverage. I left it dry for a week because I wanted all of the paint to “cure” before I moved onto the next step.
Next was putting in the new light fixture at the top and the electrical cord. That took about 10 minutes to complete. You always want to follow instructions when changing out lighting fixtures to ensure that they’re properly installed. I took a strand of white fairy lights that run on batteries and have a 4 hour timer and gently wound those around the chain link that runs around the top platform. The battery pack sits hidden inside the top of the lighthouse which lifts off for light bulb replacement.
After it was finished I gave it to my wife as a gift. She absolutely LOVED it. She changes out the little home decor pieces on the shelves as the seasons change. At night when the lights are off in our family room we turn it on. A gentle glowing light which is calm and relaxing.
My wife is going to update it a little more next month by adding some gray colored painted accents. She doesn’t like big, bold and bright colors…so it will end up two-toned…white and a light gray. Overall, I’m really pleased how this upcycled project turned out.
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