Table Lamps

A table lamp is the layer that makes a room feel finished after dark, because it puts light at sitting height instead of overhead. Two modest lamps at opposite corners of a living room do more for the look of it than one bright ceiling fixture ever will - that is the principle behind layering light, and the table lamp is usually the layer people are missing.

Proportion is where these go wrong. The working rules: the shade wants to be roughly twice the width of the base and about three-quarters of its height, and wide enough to keep the bulb and its hardware out of sight of anyone sitting beside it. How to choose a lampshade has the full set. Keep the bulb warm at 2700K - a table lamp is a light you sit next to, and cool white is unforgiving at that distance.

A good number of these are cordless and rechargeable, which is a genuinely different product rather than a gimmick: it goes on a dining table, a shelf, a windowsill, or outside for the evening, none of which have a socket nearby. A battery lamp is also the easy answer for a bedside table with no outlet behind it, where the alternative is running a wall light - bedside light ideas compares the two properly.