Vintage Brass Lamp Restoration

If you find an old tarnished brass lamp at your local thrift store or your dumpster, don’t pass it by! You can clean it up and restore it using vinegar, salt, and flour paste, and I’ll show you how. You won’t believe this transformation! Vintage Brass Lamp Restoration for the win!

If you’re anything like me, then you love a good Vintage item or a good Thrifted item. Well, this lamp is both Vintage AND thrifted!

Alright, well maybe not thrifted, but I did get it at my dumpster so it may as well have been thrifted! The lamp shade IS actually thrifted since the lamp itself didn’t have one when I found it. (How many times did I just say thrifted LOL)

Here it is all black and tarnished before I got my hands on it and restored it.

I’d be lying if I said that I actually found it, because it was technically Justice (my 12 year old son) who first spotted it. He knows me too well and I heard him yell “Mom! Come look, you’re gonna love this!” Of course it came home with me and I gave it a little cleanup using Vinegar/salt/flour paste to restore the (almost) natural brass color.

A little research shows this lamp is 20-30 years old and made by a company called Decorative Crafts ‘Hand crafted imports’ which is no longer in business.

An Etsy search showed that a pair of these bad boys with the original shades goes for QUITE a bit of cashola! #Score (I’m definitely not selling it though)

I had to get a shade for it at my local thrift store, but it took some Jerry Rigging because I didn’t have the right part. All I can say is that E6000 works wonders and 6 months later it’s still holding up wonderfully. Isn’t this shade just perfect?

Let me show you how I did this Vintage Brass Lamp Restoration! (I fully know this may not be technically classified as a “Restoration”, but we’re calling it that)

This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a cent more!)

Supplies Needed to Restore a Vintage Brass Lamp

• Vintage Lamp found at my dumpster
• Thrift Store Lamp Shade
• Old Microfiber Rag
• Old hard bristled paint brush
• 1/2 cup White Vinegar
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• Flour

**After the fact, I found out you can buy a brass cleaner, but that’s just not as fun! No idea how good it works but if you try it, let me know what you think. There is a popular one called Brasso as well, but this one doesn’t look as efficient to me its more of a “polish”

How to Restore a Vintage Brass

I showed you how to do this on video. So you can WATCH the tutorial by clicking below.

Watch the video HERE

So after some Googling, I found a “recipe” for a homemade brass cleaner that I just happened to have all the stuff on hand to make!

It said to mix together a 1/2 cup of white vinegar, a teaspoon of salt, and then sprinkle with flour until it forms a paste. Wellllllll, it was just not forming a paste!

I wasn’t sure if I should add more flour, but I decided to roll with it and added a bit more. I think it’s really the vinegar and salt that is doing the work, and the flour is just to make it easier to apply to the brass. Either way #ItWorked

I used a combination of a microfiber towel and an old hard bristled paint brush to scrub, scrub, scrub. I alternated between the two, because I wasn’t sure which was working better and I was also a tad scared that the paint brush would scratch the brass, but I don’t think that it did.

After putting a LOT of elbow grease into it, it went from this……

To THIS……….!!!!!

I tried letting the paste sit on the brass a few minutes before scrubbing, and it did seem to maybe kind of help, but honestly you just had to scrub. It was a long tedious process, and the bottom was harder to get cleaned up then the top, but it did work and was so worth it in the end.

Here is a pic of the bottom all shined up before I moved to the top. Look at that difference!

Even though the bottom was a bit more work, I was still able to get it nice and gold like the top. Now let’s see how long it stays this way!

After a solid hour of scrubbing and pasting and scrubbing some more, I think I’m satisfied with the results.

I finally got rid of one of the lamps from a set that I had from Jeromes Furniture Circa 2010! I will never forget those lamps as they were the first living room set that I ever purchased for myself when I first moved to San Diego. It was such a big purchase that I had to Finance it for $72 a month for a year or so.

Now look at me donating it to the thrift store to replace it with a lamp I found at my dumpster. Ohh if 2010 me could see 2023 me, I don’t know if she would laugh or cry.

If you love the dumpster, thrifty, upcycle vibes like me, then check out this Thrift Store Crown Frame I just made over! It totally goes in my living room with the vibe of this lamp. Thrift Queens 4L!

Are you going to restore some old tarnished brass? Or even make over a thrift store find? If you do, I’d love to see it! Pop on over to our free Craftspiration Facebook group, and join in on the fun by posting a pic of your Tiered Trays, DIY’s and crafts. I just love to see all your creative and crafty creations.

If you’ve got a million projects on your crafting ‘to-do’ list like I do, than you need my FREE Craft Project Planner so you can plan to make *all the things*! When you sign up for the craft planner, I’ll also send you lot’s of fun, easy, and budget friendly ideas for you to fill it up with!

Until Next Time…

Stay Crafty San Diego!

Love this Vintage Brass Lamp Restoration? Make sure to PIN it for later!