Update on the Gossip Bench with Clock and Sconces: Looking Good!

A couple posts ago, I showed off this pair of sconces and speculated that they would match up pretty well with one of my brass starburst clocks and the funky telephone table/gossip bench in our foyer.  I finally got around to shooting some photos, so here's where we are now.

I still need to put something in the sconces - it's probably going to be some fake ivy or another type of fake plant.

I've been looking for an old telephone book for this shelf, and until I find one I picked up this great vintage binder for keeping phone numbers.  It was an etsy.com find, and it's in great shape.

Mid-Century Brass and Black Sconces

I've always had a thing for the common mid-century combination of brass and black.  Here's the latest acquisition from that auction site: a pair of sconces.  The brass parts are close to 12 inches tall, and the globes are about 3.5 inches in diameter.

I took a chance on the brass being salvageable, but this set had some serious rust issues.  I tried but could not get the brass polish to clean one of these well enough for display.  So sadly, I broke out the spray primer and then the brass paint.  I also primed and repainted the steel globes.

Anyone have an idea what could have been contained in these globes?

I don't see any sign of rust inside, so I doubt if live plants were ever put in these.  And there's no spike or flat part where a candle could have been installed.  It's puzzling.

Right now I'm still thinking about where I'll hang these - for the photos I just used a couple of hooks already on one of our walls.  I often see a pair of sconces like this teamed with a wall clock, and I think I already have just the clock for this...

Now I just need the right space for it.  Maybe in our entry way, perched above this gossip bench/telephone table?

I've been toying with recovering the seat on this with a vintage pattern fabric, so maybe that's what I'll do, and pair all these pieces together.

Stay tuned...

Gossip Bench Finally Gets a Lampshade

I had the day off so I spent a couple hours rewiring and attaching the lamp arm and shade to one of my first atomic-styled furniture acquisitions - this great telephone table / gossip bench.  BEST $40 purchase I've ever made!!!

Thanks to Sara of NoPatternRequired.com, I had an inkling of what kind of shade I should look for.  And I finally lucked into a fiberglass shade on ebay a couple weeks ago.

To connect the shade, the lamp had to come apart, which meant rewiring.  Rewiring the lamp took longer than I expected, because the wire cord had to pass through the lamp arm and make a really sharp turn before coming out at the top.  I used some WD-40 spray to help the cord through the arm, and soon enough I had it rewired.

I have never had the lamp arm attached to this before, and I've had it so long I could not recall how the thing attached, but from what I can tell, this angled orientation is probably how it was.

I've never seen another one of these, but Sara had seen one in Texas but didn't have a photo.  She described it from memory and that was enough to get me on the right track.  THANKS Sara!!!