LITTLE ROCK — With color and form, well chosen decorative accessories can spice up decor. But table lamps have an additional edge.
They can add warmth, coziness and an overall glow.
“Table lamps contribute to the look of a space,” says Lucy Martin, design director for John Cullen Lighting Co. in London. “The light they provide adds critical mood and ambience.
Interior design can feel lifeless if lit incorrectly.
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. Similar shapes, limited colors and patterns, and seemingly one-size-fits-all vanilla shades in the same tailored drum or coolie silhouette, some with outdated crisp pleats, dominated the lamp-scape.
But along with a buzz of late about imaginatively designed and scaled chandeliers and pendants, more lighting designers are shaking it up with lamps.
“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.
Lamps do play a pivotal role in decorating. In fact, Martin shows how they can be an interior designer’s lifeline. “It does not matter how much money is spent on an interior or how luxe the finishes are,” Martin says. “The light is what will bring it to life.”
HomeStyle, Pages 34 on 02/26/2011