Last week the focus was on how to hang swag style pendant lamps
If you’re not quite ready to break out your drill, though, table lamps are an equally great option for anyone’s home decor.
Table lamps come in a variety of sizes, styles, and colors to suit your needs and require minimal installation. Setting up an accent lamp is as easy as taking the base out of the box, screwing in a bulb, and plugging the cord in.
If you’re still not sure if table lamps are right for your home, read on to hear about all the advantages of accent lighting!
Why not just use the lighting that comes equipped with my room?
Great question!
While ceiling lights are a perfectly viable lighting option they do come with a few disadvantages.
Not only are the ceiling lights that come with your home probably an eyesore, but they also have no real sense of style. The most common lighting fixture in American homes is the flush mount light fixture. These builder-grade lighting solutions were developed in the early twenty-first century and became an easy way for contractors and property owners to light up homes on the cheap.
Secondly, these types of lighting fixtures can cast shadows in the corners of the room...which is exactly the opposite of what you want your lights to do! While they’re generally bright enough to illuminate what’s directly underneath them, flush mounts usually aren’t strong enough to fill up a whole space with light.
Even if you added another flush mount fixture to your ceiling, you run the risk of making your ceilings appear shorter, thus making the room feel smaller. This is especially true if your room has low ceilings or isn’t much in the way of square footing.
But why accent lamps?
Accent lamps, by contrast, can be peppered throughout a space, so long as counter/table space permits. This is, of course, within reason; you don’t exactly want your room looking like the lighting section of Home Depot!
Contrary to general wisdom, you can, and should, layer your lighting solutions. As we mentioned before, one light, no matter if it’s overhead or down below, isn’t going to cover your whole room from corner to corner. To do that, you’ll need a variety of hanging, standing, and accent lamps coordinating with your overall design. We encourage you to experiment and think strategically about the elements of your room that need the most light or that you’d like to bring attention to.
Lastly, accent lamps come in a multitude of shapes, colors, finishes, and styles. Whether you’re a minimalist, or you love decorating every spare surface in your home, there’s a lamp out there for you.
What accent lamp should I go for?
- What kind of room are you styling?
- Do you want something simple, or something that makes a statement?
- Is there a color you have to keep in mind?
- What finishes do you prefer?
- Exposed bulb, or hidden? Shade, or no shade?
What kind of accent lamp you choose depends on what effect you’re trying to achieve in your space.
American Art Decor is proud to offer a variety of stylish accent lamps at an affordable price. A quick scroll through our table lamp category reveals a multitude of lamps in different colors, mediums, and finishes. Below are some of our accent lamps styled for some of the most popular interior design trends, as well as a breakdown of why we chose the items we did.
Maximalist
Maximalist decorators will have a lot more leeway in terms of what lighting solution they choose.
Their first instinct may be to go for stand-out pieces to match the rest of their interior designs. While that’s a perfectly fine idea, choosing a more minimalist piece will make all the more impact and play up the drama in your space.
Don’t believe us? Just look at how a simple marble table lamp shines in this deep emerald room among all the glassware, knick-knacks, plants, and mid-century modern furnishings!
Not only does the lamp’s strikingly barebones design elevate it in comparison to its surroundings, but it ties the room’s elements together. With its sleek construction and open bulb-display (which we paired with a large Edison-style bulb), this simple little lamp helps drive the room’s retro look and feel home.
Contemporary
Contemporary interior design is all about staying up to date with the latest home decor trends and keeping one’s finger on the pulse of what’s up and coming in the home decor world. Right now that means sophisticated silhouettes, handcrafted items, and lots and lots of natural greenery.
We styled this sculptural rattan table lamp with this particular design style because we liked the idea of playing with natural colors and textures. Not only has rattan been trending hard this past year, but natural elements and tropical vibes are going strong well into next fall.
For this room, we knew we needed a shaded lamp to tie the whitewash brick wall into the rest of our design. Narrowing our search by color, we were able to find lamps that had natural elements and off-white shades to match our vision.
We ended up choosing this particular lamp because of its dynamic and open design. We also liked that it added some height to the collection of items we already had on the wardrobe, which helped to balance the spread out.
Shabby Chic
One of our favorite design styles, shabby chic combines romantic silhouettes and colors with distressed European furnishings for a unique vintage flair.
When we think of shabby chic, we think of layered textiles, lots of lace, fine crystal, hand-crafted items, and plenty of florals. This room was mostly styled with pinky neutrals that carried over to the floral-covered curtains and sheets, which left us with few options to play with for color.
Because everything in the room was already very mid-toned and neutral, we settled on a set of white lamps to really stand out. Not only would their pure white color make them the most striking thing in the room, but the east-facing window to the left of the bed meant that the sun would hit them just right in the morning, making it look as if they were glowing.
These ceramic table lamps were a perfect fit in this case, especially because they were aesthetically simple yet distinct. We especially liked the hand-spun look of the lamp base and loved the slightly ribbed textural details.
Minimalist
Clean lines, uncluttered surfaces, and a less-is-more philosophy are the bread and butter of minimalist interior design. Described by many as austere and barebones, this design philosophy allows for a lot of customization and is easy to switch up season after season.
While this particular room heavily leaned into the minimalist style trend, it also wasn’t afraid to experiment with nonconventional or more unique pieces that might have been considered more ornamental than functional.
This bedroom already had a pre-established color palette before we got to it, and we didn’t want to do too much to disrupt it. But, because it was so simple, we knew we had to jazz it up somehow! We decided to do that by pushing the boundaries between fashion and function, toeing the line between true minimalism and contemporary design.
We liked the navy blue, off-white, and natural wood elements in this room, but didn’t quite want a lamp with any of those colors. Inspired by the manual alarm clock that this homeowner had on their bedside table, we opted for an accent lamp to match. The one we chose had a base that mirrored the geometric lines throughout the room and also had a shade that pulled the clock’s soft black color into the room’s general color palette.
Scandinavian
Scandinavian design has taken the world by storm these past few years, bringing unique concepts like hygge and lagom into the vernacular.
Inspired by many of the same principles as minimalism, Scandinavian design’s primary focus is creating a cozy space, especially for those cold winter months. It’s essentially “nesting” for a new age of homeowners and designers and it seems to have had a lasting effect on American design in general.
One of Scandinavian interior design’s main tenets is using neutral tones and allowing for a few pops of color. This room stuck to that principle pretty stringently, so we knew we needed to include something bold if we wanted our lamp to stand out. At the same time, the room did already have a lovely natural wood and soft blue color palette that we didn’t want to disrupt, leaving us with limited options.
Instead of going for an accent lamp in a bold color, we chose one with an eye-catching design and a neutral color palette. This orbital desk lamp is a perfect hybrid between an accent lamp and a piece of tabletop decor. This lamp adds interest while also being incredibly useful for lighting the space up when used in conjunction with other lighting solutions.
Accent lamps are a great way to add even more personality to your rooms. As long as you have a clear idea of your vision for a space, and a discerning eye, you really can’t go wrong with them.
Light is a difficult design element to master but, with patience and practice, you’ll be able to easily and quickly light up a room to bring out the best of your designs.
Have you ever styled a room with accent lamps? What’s your favorite item to pair with them? We’d love to hear your tried and true decor tips...leave them in the comments below for a chance to be featured in a future post!
Until next time!
