I use a standard 5 gallon bucket with a custom slide in mount for my lamp. Rather then painting it since it always gets dinged up when put away (learned from the first attempt) I now have a outdoor friendly cover to hide it away.
I like your idea to use something cool and rustic. Of course my prefrence would be to either sand blast it and paint it a complimenting mototone color, or get creative with the mouses colors. Of course depending on its petina, I one could just hit the whole thing with 2000 grit and clear it as is to preserve the "look" which was what I did for a freinds household light post that had that raw rustic steel/ironworks look to it they wanted to keep.