What size shade suits a table lamp?

Roughly twice the width of the base and about three-quarters of its height, wide enough to hide the bulb and its hardware from anyone sitting beside it.

Can I use a cordless table lamp outdoors?

Only one that is listed as waterproof. Four lamps here carry IP65 in the title; check the rating on the product page before leaving any lamp outside overnight.

Does a table lamp replace the ceiling light?

It does not need to. Two lamps at opposite corners of a room, on top of a dimmed overhead light, give the layered look that one bright ceiling fixture cannot.

Table Lamps

Q: What bulb colour is best for a table lamp?

Warm white, 2700K. A table lamp is a light you sit next to, and cool white is unforgiving at that distance.

Table lamps, and a small number of floor lamps. Read by them. Pour by them. Linger by them.

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.

Cordless and rechargeable table lamps

Around 30 of the 118 lamps here carry wireless, cordless, rechargeable or portable in their name, 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. The cordless and rechargeable table lamps have a page of their own, with the run times and charging details each listing gives; the Savoy Elegance Wireless Table Lamp is one of them.

Modern, metal and mushroom table lamps

Shapes run from soft to architectural. Six lamps are mushroom-shaped, from the glass Miro Colorful Mushroom to the Contemporary Creative Mushroom LED, and eight have iron or metal in the name, among them the Nordic Dome Iron Glass, the Nordic Antler Iron and the Solenne Modern Metal. For something plainer, the Contemporary Brilliance table lamp comes in more than one colour. Colour is a selector on 64 of the 118, so choose the finish before you add a lamp to the cart; the photo you land on may show a different one. For a small decorative piece, there is the Golden Legend Table Lamp in crystal with brass accents. Some table lamps are built to warm a jar candle as much as to light a room: the wax warmer lamps mostly use a halogen bulb over the jar, sold separately on most listings.