Well-chosen accessories can spice up your decor. But table lamps have an additional edge. They can add warmth, coziness and an overall glow.
“Interior design can feel lifeless if lit incorrectly,” says Lucy Martin, design director for John Cullen Lighting Co. in London. “Light is the ‘ethereal’ element in a scheme — the thing you can’t touch or physically feel. It is the light and shade that produce atmosphere.”
Compared with other decorating categories, lamp style, for the most part, has been a yawner. But along with a buzz of late about imaginatively designed and scaled chandeliers and pendants, more lighting designers are shaking it up with lamps. That’s great news for consumers, who now have myriad choices.
“Many of us spend a lot of time and effort on the decorative scheme, but few spend much time considering lighting,” says Martin, author of a new small format spiral-bound text, “The Home Lighting Effects Bible: Ideas and Know- How for Better Lighting in Every Part of Your Home” (Firefly Books, $39.95). The book, which is illustrated with more than 400 photos, examines the principles of good lighting in all categories.
Table lamps, in particular, often are afterthoughts. For many, the purchase is more often pragmatic — a need for a reading light on a night table or next to a sofa. Yet, says Martin, “How you light your home is as important as how you decorate it.”
Martin writes that size matters — not only because the larger the lamp, the greater amount of light produced. But also, because table lamps can be so prominent — “right in your eye line,” so she recommends investing in the best examples you can afford.
There is a wide price range — from under $100 to more than $1,000, largely the result of the use of materials, quality of construction and where the lamp is made. A designer name may add panache, as well as a higher price tag. A hand-painted shade or one clad in elegant Fortuny fabric, for example, will have its premium, as will hand-blown glass, stone such as marble, or fine wood with a distinctive grain.
Options reflect a variety of decorating styles, from the currently ubiquitous Belgian modern, with its whitewashed wood, linen and low-lustre metals, to sleek, glamorous throwbacks to the 1930s and 1940s with a hint of art deco. From craftsman styles to retro 1950s, coastal to log cabin, there also are modern designs that are perfect for transitioning — lending a spark to übertraditional decor.
When you go shopping, leave your preconceptions at home. Even familiar forms are being tweaked to create hybrids that are pleasantly surprising.
Take shape, for example. Gourds, globes, urns and eggs seem fairly mundane. But interpreted in unexpected materials with a sheen or texture casts them in a new light.
You also may notice that some designs have a beefed-up scale, often interpreted in taller lamps with tall shades, a nod to 1960s and 1970s.
Placing the light source within a familiar form, say, in a cylinder, creates a glow, especially when the cladding is fairly opaque. That makes it effective as an up-light.
Thinking totally outside of the box has some lamps sprawling, crawling, sinuous, and perhaps interpreted in ribbons of colorful glass. These captivating striped sculptures almost seem to put art first, treating lighting almost as an afterthought. Other sculptural forms are modeled in bronze or other materials, such as a beautifully formed nautilus that hides its light source from within.
Celebrating pure form is especially dramatic with strong geometric shapes, Greek keys or chain links that play with positive and negative space.
There’s a lot to be said for transparency. Familiar shapes such as stacked glass crystal or Lucite balls or cubes are reminiscent of boudoir lamps from Hollywood movies of the ’30s and ’40s. Fashion designer Michael Kors described a simpler, classic see-through design created by New York icon John Saladino some 30 years ago as “the little black dress of lamps.”
Some clear glass cylinders or urn shapes have been designed to house collections — sea shells, for example. But these, as well as newer square and rectangular shapes, are most intriguing when they allow the eyes to get past the form, to take in other objects and colors in the room. Colored glass adds still another dimension.
An additional dynamic option is a lamp that’s reflective or metallic. From mercury glass, which lends vintage appeal, to mirrors to metals including stainless steel, chrome and copper that is polished, burnished, hammered or otherwise textured, each can add sparkle and sophistication.
Textured surfaces also include grasscloth, shells, woven materials such as rattan and leather-clad pieces that are embossed to mimic shagreen (sharkskin), crocodile or ostrich, some in surprising colors.
Color has stylishly transformed even the most familiar shapes into eye candy. Lampshades often are cued up in the same hue, or interpreted with boldly contrasting hues, such as the magenta porcelain Isadora lamp from The Natural Light, with its shiny lime lamp shade lined in magenta.
“The nice thing about a lamp is that you can move it around,” says Bethanne Matari, a spokeswoman for manufacturer Currey & Co. “You don’t have to pay an electrician to come in and install it.”
