Faux Pole Wrap Lamp Makeover DIY

Today I’m going to show you a fun little DIY craft I did that involved upcycling an old lamp to make it new and trendy again!  

My old lamp was very outdated, but I didn’t want to spend money on a new one, so I decided to update mine using mostly items I already had on hand.

I loved the look of a beautiful wood base lamp that I found online, but could never justify the price. I decided to base my design off of that!

So how could I make this glass lamp into a wooden one? My first thought was pole wrap! I just love this look, and the product is literally made for a project like this: wrapping! If you don’t know already, pole wrap is a pliable sheet of decorative wood that is designed to cover support posts or columns. The fact that it is pliable means that you can use it to wrap almost anything, and if you jump over to Pinterest you can see what I mean. It’s everywhere! And it’s so pretty. But I still thought I could achieve the same look for less.  

And that’s how this craft was born! I created a faux pole wrap look for my lamp for a fraction of what a new lamp or proper pole wrap would have cost me. Let me show you how!

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Step by step instructions for a faux pole wrap lamp makeover

Cut boards and edgebanding to the length of the lamp base

I cut the poplar boards in half using my table saw, and then cut strips of edgebanding with the scissors. Both the boards and the edgebanding strips were cut to the length of my old lamp base. The slats in real pole wrap are narrow enough that they will wrap around a pole flush to the surface, and I wanted to create the same effect with my faux wrap! 

attach boards and edgebanding to the lamp base

Then, I used my glue gun to attach the poplar board slats and strips of edgebanding to the glass lamp base in an alternating pattern. The edgebanding makes sure that you don’t get even a glimpse of glass between the wood slats, and really works to create a pole wrap effect. After I started this step, I also realized I could cut my edgebanding strips in half as well and save some material.  

Wood Stain

After I had all of my edgebanding and poplar boards attached to my lamp base I stained all the wood to match. First I used a wood conditioner. Using wood conditioner before staining ensures a more uniform look to your stained wood, and helps avoid getting a blotchy finish.

Make sure to use the correct wood conditioner for your stain. EX: If you are using a water based stain, make sure to get a water based conditioner. If you are using oil based stain, make sure your conditioner is oil based.

I used a combination of “Classic Gray” and “Ipswich Pine” for my wood stains, but feel free to use whatever colors work best for your space!

paint the lampshade

Once the lamp base was finished, I decided the old lamp shade didn’t match, so I spray painted the it! It was a shade of brown before, and I painted it dark gray, using spray paint I had on hand for a more modern look.  

And that’s it! This DIY was so easy and really elevated the look of my whole room for only a few dollars.  

Have you jumped on the pole wrap trend? Tag me @designingparkside in your pole wrap DIY projects! 

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