5 Restored Railway Safety Lamp

 Ages ago I teased you with this auction find of mine that needed a good makeover: 

an actual railway safety lamp!

I love Restoration Hardware, but can only dream of affording what they display.  

One item I lust for regularly are their industrial lamps, 

*sigh*

so I was determined to make this railway lantern my own!!

 I wore this sexy getup while I scraped, scraped, steel-woolled, and scraped the old paint off. I then scrubbed the whole thing down, rinsed out the inside a few times, and put it aside.

 I bought some rust-prevention metal paint in black and bright red, and I started with the black. Two coats later I had the legs done and the lid.

I put the whole thing aside again. 

I then did a coat of the red paint, but it was thin. I set the whole thing aside again.

*While part of the "setting aside" was laziness, it was also the weather. This summer has been crazy rainy and I needed a good-weather, not windy day to work on this!

 Since my time to finish up projects is quickly drawing to a close, I knew I needed to finish the lamp. 

I slathered on a second coat of the red, and touched up the black- and I love it!

 There were so many layers of paint originally that it was hard to distinguish which parts should be which color, and I couldn't find anything just like it online, so I went with my gut.

 "LAMP MANUFACTURING & 

RAILWAY SUPPLIES LTD LONDON"

 The lid says the same thing, just with a different patent number.

I'm really excited about it. After a few days (to be sure the paint is completely dry) I'm going to try a candle in it to see how it shines through!

Have you made or restored anything inspired by a catalog-dream? 

Link to it in the comments!

In other news, have YOU entered my cookbook giveaway??