apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I had a Tizio next to my bed for a number of years...
...a great lamp that I had wanted just about forever, but the reality of the machined-metallic finish left me cold and the diminutive scale made the room feel small - plus I kept bumping into the cantilevered lamp head and it was a pain to dust.

Now I have a gigantic vintage red ceramic table lamp w/ a huge drum shade. I love the warmth that the earthy handmade texture and color brings to the room and it's overscale mass actually makes the room seem larger - It's a pleasure to look at as well as touch, and I can read in bed just as well as before.

I think it all depends on what you do in the bedroom. I'm currently re-evaluating the lighting in there (huge windows, no overhead lighting, and one hideous lamp). I hardly do any reading in bed, so task lighting doesn't make any sense for me. I need more general lighting but can't put in an overhead. So new table lamps it is. There may be a compromise between form and function, though -- unobtrusive wall-mounted or clamp spotlights above or on the side of the headboard in addition to table lamps? Book clip lights? ;-)

I actually prefer the light cast by table lamps in the bedroom... it's softer and more atmospheric, but sufficient for reading.

Visually, I love the look of wall-mounted Tolomeo or Jielde lamps, but find the light they cast can be too directed, and too harsh. I am trying to find some cool vintage lamp or lamps from a brocante somewhere...

(right now we have hideous table lamps that came with our furnished accommodations... as bad as the furniture!)

i love my noguchi lamp glowing beside me...

I'm switching from task to table as we speak. The shadows created by the task lamp bug me.

it would depend on how much space i have available

How about wall mounted swing arm lamps? For example, the Chelsea Swing-Arm Sconce at www.potterybarn.com, is similar to the table lamp above (shade, silver finish) but provides the movement function of the task light.

Good luck. I'm considering the same issue and am likely going with the Chelsea or something similar.

We've got task lamps and love the way they look and how positionable they are.

Can we ban this Abercrombie & Fitch spammer?

dcaries -- we've thought about wall-mounted task lamps, but how do you feel about the hanging cord?

In fact, the JIELDE lamps are from my point of view very comfortable to use, and very pleasant, given that you can really customize them, ( i mean not the new ones that you can find everywhere because they don't have the "cachet" of the old ones and because they are much more expensive and not very easy to paint )

For instance, you can use the JIELDE lamp with a clamp on your table, put as many arms as you want, use a specific pod to screw it on your table .... (the way they used to be used in the 60/70/80's fabrics )

And you can also use a Fresnel lens to "dispatch" le light, or use a led bolb to create like a spot. and even mount them on the wall as it was shown on a post dedicated to these lamps :D

(BTW for thoses looking for JIELDE lamps, you can find them on ebay or in old fabrics, but for ebay try typing JEILDE inverting the I and the E, i got some at very low prices this way :) )

I actually love that table that opens into a magazine rack in the righthand picture. Anyone know where that's from, or know of anyone who makes a similar item?