Creating a Frankenstein table

My friend Erin gave me a guitar-pick table a few weeks ago, and around the same time, I found a rusty tension pole lamp that had lost its top and bottom tensioners at an estate sale. The shades were a soft plastic, with a pattern painted on them, in decent if dirty condition. I think I paid $15 for the pole lamp, which some may have thought a ridiculous price for junk. I figured I'd pay that much for a set of three shades if I went on a hunt, so I bought it.

As with many things, I can get an idea, but then I have to ruminate on how to bring it to completion.

• I disassembled the lamp completely. 
• I washed the shades (they looked much better than expected once I got them clean).
• I tried scouring the rust off the pole. Success, in that the rust was gone and nothing had rusted through, but the finish was ruined. Decided to keep sanding them, not to remove the finish, but to get everything as smooth as possible.
• Went to the hardware store and got some Krylon spray primer for metal and some Krylon gold metallic paint.
• I rigged some bungee cords to hold the three sections of the pole while I primed and painted them from all angles. This allowed me to hang them in the middle of the garage while I painted them, then carefully move them out of the way while they dried (and I could get the car back into the garage). 
• I think I put two thin coats of primer down, then three coats of metallic gold paint. After that, two coats of a clear coat to give it a better sheen and to protect the color.

• I got some Howard's "Restor-A-Finish" at Woodcraft (same place I got the small grommets) and gave the scuffed-up legs a little going-over. It didn't completely obscure the scuffs, but it did pretty well. Super-easy to use, too!
• I hunted around for table grommets that would fit the pole snugly. I found a hard plastic grommet with a metallic gold finish at Ace, but it was a little too small. I thought I'd sand it out with my Dremel. After a little time to think about all the things that would go wrong with that idea, I found two grommets like you'd see in a desk, in brown, to go with the wood tones of the table. They also came with some snap-on covers for routing cords. These grommets were just a tiny bit too big for the pole. More on this later.

• Now to decide where to fit the lamp into the table. Centered, or offset in a corner? I decided that the larger surface area of the tabletop afforded by putting the pole off in a corner made more sense. This is where I tried measuring and engineering a point to drill and ultimately just put the grommet on the table and scooted it around and eyballed the measurement from as many angles as I could.

Upper shelf, pilot hole drilled

Lower shelf, pilot hole drilled

• I drilled a tiny pilot hole. Then I drilled a slightly smaller pilot hole and used a plumb-bob to mark the same in the lower shelf of the table. 

• With the pilot hole drilled into the top, I got my hole saw kit out and found the hole saw that matched the grommet and drilled that. 

Upper shelf with hole cut and grommet in place

• Then I double-checked the pilot hole on the bottom by placing the pole through the upper shelf. I'm glad I did that, it was about a half-inch off. Not sure how I made the error, but it was fixed before I had a problem on my hands. 

Checking the fit before I cut the lower shelf hole. Also checking the height with another floor lamp

Once I figured out where to cut the lower hole, I cut that, then decided I needed to remove about 6" from the pole. The lowest section of the pole made the most sense to cut (there were some holes drilled into it near the first joint that I wanted to hide). I had to buy a pipe cutter that would fit the 1.5" wide pole, so that set me back $20, but now I have it for the next project like this. 

I fit the grommet into the lower shelf, then expoxied the cap in place, pointing the gap in the cap towards the back leg of the table. The cord is going to go through that. 

I glued the upper grommet in place with carpenter's glue.

Now remember how I said the grommet was slightly larger than the pole? The pole wobbled, but the inside diameter of the grommet was about 1-2 mm larger than the pole. Not a lot of wobble, but I still wanted it gone.

I got some thin O-rings at the hardware store when I got that pipe cutter, and shimmed the pole against the grommet top and bottom.