Bright Ideas for Lamp Selection

Peruse the lighting section of any furniture store and you’ll see lamps in all shapes, sizes and colors. Often the last items purchased for the home, lamps can be like jewelry in interior design, illuminating accessories that complete a room. 

Melanie Whittington, owner of Arlington-based Whittington Design Studio, chose Tracey Glover lamps for a client’s family room in Yorktown. Glover’s lamps are made from hand-blown glass. The reflective quality and jewel tones make these lamps stand out in a room. These lamps sparkle like dangling earrings.  Glover, the New York-based artist and designer, says some of her clients even build a room around the lamp.

“We love customers who do that, and have worked with many,” said Glover. “You start with a shape and color combination that you like and choose the rest of the colors around that lamp. Naturally, I do that in my home!”

Lamps can also be displayed as art.

“Isolating a lamp on a table, without any surrounding clutter, automatically elevates it as special if it is already beautiful,” Glover said. “The light attracts the eye and, hopefully, the lamp lives up to the attention!”

Sarah Fretwell, president and CEO of SJF Interiors, expanded on that idea.

“There’s no better way to make a space feel more personal than using layers of light,” Fretwell said. “Lamps can provide task or ambient lighting. Instead of having one single overhead light in a room, put a lamp on a dresser or a floor lamp next to a chaise.”

One trend Fretwell loves is the two-tiered lamp shades in which an inner shade may be opaque with a solid or translucent outer shade.

She also likes creating lamps out of personal items, such as porcelain vases.  Fretwell has done this for clients using The Brass & Copper Shop in Frederick, Md., which repairs light fixtures and can convert all types of items into lamps.

Although shades come in all colors, Margaret Carter, of Margaret Carter Interiors in Clarendon, said she dislikes darker shades.

“This trend of colored shades is kind of funny. A black shade looks great during the day, but doesn’t put out much light in the evening,” Carter said.

However, Carter thinks matching lamps are important in a bedroom.

“I like that symmetry in a bedroom.  There are other places you can do the unexpected,” she said.