The Cheap and Fun Way to Customize Your Lampshades so They Match Any Piece of Decor You Desire

Why bother going through all the trouble, not to mention the expense, of trying to match up lamp shades with the surrounding décor when a potentially much cheaper and inarguably less troubling method exists. The world of lampshade design has exploded into the realm of making the world seem customized to every taste, but in reality even the most outlandish of prefabricated lampshades remains an example of mass production. You may get close to something genuinely unique, but you won’t get there exactly by depending upon interior designers in the employ of people not unlike the Meryl Streep character in “The Devil Wears Prada.

Do you really want such imperfect examples of humanlike drones deciding your interior design for you?

Of course not. So head out to the nearest low-cost home furnishing store and buy a simple lightly-colored lampshade that meets your needs in terms of size, shape and aesthetic quality. From this point on, you enter a world of genuine and authentic customizability that allows you to personalize your lampshades capable of meeting the most exacting and precise considerations.

As long as you buy a lampshade made of material that can be cut, trimmed and to which other material can in some way be adhered, the world is your oyster. It is up to you to find material that matches the décor in the room in which the lamp will provide light. Whether that be the intricate lace of a dining table cloth, the offbeat orange color you painted your refrigerator or the thick texture of shag carpeting, you can match the lampshade.

Check with the particulars of safety regarding the heat provided by the bulb as far as adhering materials go. You may be able to glue a delicate piece of lace to the plain white lampshade to make a perfect match or you may be required to go the extra distance and actually sew the lace in place.

Look around the room in which you sit as you read this. How difficult would it be to find material that matches your paisley curtains or the sumptuous brown leather of your sofa? What about transforming a plain light-colored lampshade into a work of art that goes perfectly with your historically accurate if culturally unsound tiki motif that displaces earth tones in favor of brilliantly colored reds, blues and yellows?

That zigzag pattern of your floor tile can be duplicated on the lampshade either by application of matching material or through the application of paint guided by the sure hand of a talented painted.

Get the point, yes? Walk into any home furnishing store or lighting store and try to find a lampshade that perfectly matches the item or items in your home with which you are seeking to make a complementary or contrasting statement. If you can find the lampshade and it is in stock, check the price tag. Now walk into a store that sells fabric and see if you can find something that matches it to an even more impressive degree. Don’t even bother checking the price; the odds are 99-1 against the lampshade that has already been made by some stranger being cheaper.

The bonus is that you get the satisfaction of vocalizing to everyone who complements your ability to locate a perfect matching lampshade those words heard at the very end of every episode of “The X-Files.”

“I made this!”