Light creates the ambience of your home, whether it is a modern award winning architectural building or a humble cottage. Getting the right lighting effect adds the final touch to your interior design plans and is worth considering at the outset of any new design, or redesign of your home.
Overhead interior lighting fixtures and fittings can be complimented and in fact, should be complimented – with a range of ‘occasional lighting', floor and table lamps. Any home, whatever the style, needs just the right lighting effect to set off the furnishings and décor, not to mention it will turn your house into a home. Using antique lamps to create the finishing touch can work well in any home, modern or otherwise, creating a real feature and talking point.
Mixing and matching styles of furniture and decoration is a very old design trick. In a very modern home antique piece works incredibly well, and fit naturally into period or traditional homes. By example, a visit to a Stately home will illustrate the effectiveness of mixing design eras for maximum impact. Very few of these houses have an interior design scheme from just one period.
Victoriana mixes happily with Georgian features, Jacobean with 20th century. Even a retro-phone next to a broadband router works surprisingly well! While you shouldn't be afraid to go ahead and mix up your design periods, this approach should be handled with care!
Mixing styles can work particularly well in old houses, from country cottages to Georgian style manor houses. Getting the feel right, however, is not straightforward. French Ormolu does not always fit in a suburban semi – it can, if handled well, but is not always quite the ‘look'! Thinking about the house itself is important.
Old houses usually incorporate several historical periods of design already, and for this reason can be well suited to the eclectic mix and match approach. More modern houses, be it a Victorian terrace or a thirties house may need a more careful approach. If you are a ‘period' stylist, you may want to go to extremes and decorate this type of house with antiques and features from just one specific period.
In either case, getting the right finishing touches for your light fittings is important. Victorian terraces or villas would traditionally have possessed gas lighting, and antique lamps that have been for converted for electric use are ideal for this type of home.
Having your electrician add a dimmer switch – not a difficult job itself – to the control will add a more authentic look. Paraffin and oil lamps can also be sourced to add lighting details, again this type of antique lamp can be sourced that has been adapted to be used with electrical fittings – reducing the work and smell involved!
Antique shops and online traders can be found that specialise in various eras. Iconic designs from the 60s and 70s such as the Lava lamp are still reproduce and widely available, as are feature vintage lamps from just about every style the 20th century has to offer
Choices, Choices, Choices.
Whatever type, or style of building you are making into your home, the details of your interior design will be important. Using antique lamps throughout the design, whether it is period or modernist can create a great visual impact, lighting your home in a subtle welcoming way.
Added to their beauty is the fact that antique lamps have an inbuilt value in them, making them an investment for the future as well as a unique and attractive design statement.
The range of available antique lamps is also extremely varied. Popular designs include classic French designs, English and Japanese lamps, plus the vast range of Chinese porcelains. Each of these styles is adaptable, but if you have a very modern design scheme, Japanese style is worth considering. Despite their antiquety, the simplicity of some Japanese designs can appear to be startlingly modern.
Reassigned vases as table lamps are also popular, creating a functional and valuable lighting
addition to your interior design. Prices can vary, so shop around until you have found the right ‘must have' finishing touch for your home.
Whatever style of design you have chosen to create your home, a feature antique lamp can set of your design in a subtle but beautiful way, creating just the right ambience for relaxing in
the welcoming light of home.
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