Ann Moore-Spencer

Light­ing brings an oth­er­wise per­fect d�cor to life. But, un­for­tu­nate­ly it is the el­e­ment that many for­get and is of­ten the el­e­ment that is cut if bud­get is an is­sue. To­day we will ex­plore some guide­lines for lamps and chan­de­liers, for light­ing is what gives a room di­men­sion and in­trigue.

Chan­de­lier Po­si­tion

In a din­ing room with an 8' ceil­ing, the bot­tom of the chan­de­lier should be ap­prox. 30 � 34"above the ta­ble or about 5' from the floor. If the ceil­ing is high­er, the fix­ture can be mount­ed 3" high­er for every foot over 8'. Hung too high you can be robbed of good light­ing. Hung too low you can be plagued by glare or be ob­struct­ed. For ad­di­tion­al dec­o­ra­tive eq­ui­ty, con­sid­er us­ing mul­ti­ple-tiered fix­tures.

Chan­de­lier Size

The di­am­e­ter of the chan­de­lier should be be­tween � the size of the ta­ble or 12" small­er than the width of your ta­ble. Your chan­de­lier should al­so have at least 4"of space from each wall. If your ta­ble is ex­tra-long and nar­row con­sid­er us­ing more than one chan­de­lier along the length of the ta­ble.Use a large chan­de­lier to an­chor a large space, while us­ing wall sconces or lamps for am­bi­ent light­ing. As a guide, add the length di­men­sion of the room to the width (in feet). The re­sult is the ap­prox­i­mate size in inch­es for your chan­de­lier. For ex­am­ple, in a 12' x 16' room, the rec­om­mend­ed di­am­e­ter of your chan­de­lier is 28."

�2 For a 10' x 10'room use a chan­de­lier 17" � 20"

�2 For a 12' x 12' room use a chan­de­lier 26" � 27"

�2 For a 14' x 14' room use 24" � 36"

Lamp­shade size

The lamp­shade should be in pro­por­tion to the size of the ta­ble: big­ger ta­bles, big­ger shades. The di­am­e­ter of your lamp­shade should ap­prox­i­mate the height from base to sock­et and the height should be about � the height of the base. The bot­tom of the shade should be wider than the base.Lamp fire pow­er.The size of your lamp­shade in­flu­ences the wattage al­lowed: the high­er the wattage the larg­er the shade. Leave a few inch­es clear­ance be­tween the bulbs and the shade.

�2 For 40 - 60 Watt in­can­des­cent bulb, leave at least 1 - 2 inch­es be­tween the bulb and the shade

�2 For 75 - 100 Watt in­can­des­cent bulb, leave at least 2 -3 inch­es

�2 For a 150 Watt or high­er, leave 3 - 4 inch­es

�2 Flu­o­res­cent bulbs are cool­er and there­fore, needs just about 1-2 inch­es clear­ance.

Con­sid­er the Use

Read­ing lamps need a wider shade to pro­vide plen­ty of light. For read­ing lamps, the bot­tom of the shade should be at around eye­lev­el to min­imise glare. Your bulb should be at least 60 watts and we rec­om­mend that you fit it with a dim­mer. If a lamp is be­ing used for task light­ing it should be bright enough and the more peo­ple need­ing to use it at the same time the wider the shade needs to be. With re­gards to height, as a rule of thumb:

�2 In a liv­ing room look for a lamp 26 - 34 inch­es tall.

�2 In the din­ing room the chan­de­lier does the heavy lift­ing. For the side­board look for a lamp 20 - 36 inch­es tall.

�2 A bed­side lamp for a tall bed would not nor­mal­ly ex­ceed around 30 inch­es tall.

D�cor Re­al­ties

�2 Se­lect a lamp you are in love with.

�2 A lamp with a sim­ple shape can have a shade with a more in­tri­cate de­sign.

�2 Se­lect a shade that is com­pat­i­ble with the d�cor. Drum shapes are at home in tran­si­tion­al, con­tem­po­rary and mod­ern decors, for in­stance. Con­sid­er all oth­er el­e­ments of the d�cor, such as, fur­ni­ture, wall fin­ish­es, floor and win­dow cov­er­ings.etc.

�2 The lamp's hard­ware must nev­er be seen at eye lev­el

�2 A lamp­shade with more trans­par­ent ma­te­r­i­al is bet­ter for read­ing and gen­er­al il­lu­mi­na­tion. Light will project from the top and bot­tom of denser shades.