One of our favourite spots to place a table lamp is a
bedside table. Why? Because the secret of a blissful night's sleep is good
bedroom lighting, and nothing creates a calm and restful ambience than a well considered bedside table lamp. As well as injecting a bit of colour and personaility to your bedroom decor,
bedside table lamps play a crucial part in providing the balanced lighting scheme you need to ensure good quality sleep.
Bedroom lighting is all about layering light for adding depth and modifying the energy around you. Bringing in pools of light from different sources like
table lamps is the key to a balanced atmosphere whilst giving you the option to dial up the cosiness.
Your bedroom is a multipurpose space where you need different levels of light from different sources to cover all the activities that take place in it: bright light to wake up to, ample light to read, dress, and even work by, and low level light to watch TV and get ready for bed. While
ceiling lights are the main source of ambient light that covers most of your 'busy' activites, table lamps are a wonderful and easy way to provide softer layers of light for reading, relaxing and encouraging you to get ready for sleep.
Here we’ve picked our 6 of our customers' favourite table lamps for providing the best bedside lighting to help inspire your next bedroom styling opportunity.
1. THE MANSFIELD
Bedside table lamps generally sit on a fairly small surface, so you want a table lamp that doesn’t take up too much room to leave space for your night time bits and pieces.
The Mansfield is our bestselling bedside lamp and favoured for its elegant proportions but dainty size: perfect for propping on a bedside table to illuminate the pages of your favourite book. This is our popular Antiqued Brass version with a
20cm Medium French Drum Shade in Plaster Pink Cow Parsley.
2. THE HENDON
Unobtrusive whilst being simply stylish, perhaps our
Hendon with its soft roundel detailing on the column might suit your style. Here we have used our delicate Featherdown fabric in Stone on a
20cm Sloped Square Shade to create an easy-to-achieve modern country look.
3. THE SMALL PORTER
A smaller lamp that is ideal for placing on bedside tables and smaller side tables, the lovely
Small Porter is often found on bedside tables next to
plump cushions and pillows for practical but pretty task lighting. Also available in a
larger table lamp size and a
sofa floor lamp design for a cohesive look throughout the home. Paired here with a
25cm Empire Shade in our ever popular
Natural Isabelle Linen, this lamp is an excellent base for showcasing patterned fabrics thanks to its pared back nature.
4/5. THE PUTNEY & ASHMEAD
If you like the look of glass for more visual impact, our dainty
Putney and
Ashmead table lamps make excellent decorative features in a room, as well as adding layers of light. With their beautifully reflective hand-blown fluted glass bodies, the pair are as much an ornament as a functional home accessory. Place them next to your bed where you can appreciate the beauty of glass that has the benefit of reflecting natural light without encroaching on the sense of space in a room. For a soft but still sumptuous look, we have paired the Putney with
25cm Medium French Drum Shade in Cambridge Blue Waterford Linen and our Ashmead with a
25cm Medium French Drum in Limestone Waterford Linen.
6. THE HIGHAM
A sweet beside table lamp with a square base and petal flourish beneath the lamp holder, the
Higham continues to be a popular choice among our customers and is now available in a new
Bronze Metallic finish. It adds a decorative touch to your bedroom, and fits seamlessly into most modern country settings.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT SHADE
Before we delve into our guidelines, it’s important to bear in mind there is no such thing as the wrong shade. If you love it – it’s the right one. Experimenting with lamp shades in new fabrics, shapes and colours is great way to instantly update your home’s style.
Bedside table lamps come in all shapes and sizes so it is important to keep the shade proportional to the size and shape of the base. You don’t want your look dwarfed by a huge shade or unbalanced by a small one. A perfectly fitting shade should hide the bulb holder underneath without encroaching on the lamp base itself.
You can find out more about how to choose and size table lampshades and what shades we make in our Style Guides blog:
How to choose a table lampshade
SIZING YOUR SHADE: 2 THINGS TO REMEMBER
1. Lamp shades are sized by measuring cross the diameter at the bottom of the shade – so if the shade diameter measures 25cm across the bottom, then it is known as a 25cm shade. As a rule, you should be looking for 15-20 cm wide shades for a smaller lamp base, between 20-35 cm for an average lamp base and anything up to about 50 cm for a larger lamp base.
2. A rough guide to working out the size of shade you require is to measure the height of your table lamp from the bottom of the base to the top of the lamp stem just below the lamp holder. The shade you select should then have a diameter of plus or minus 5cm of this measured height. So, if you have lamp that is 40cm tall, you should choose a shade that is 35 to 45cm wide.
For our guide on how to measure for table lamps, see How to Size Shades for Table Lamps in the Jim Lawrence Knowledge Base.
The width of the lampshade should be roughly equal to the height of the lamp base.
The height of the lampshade should be about two thirds the height of the lamp base.
SHAPE
As a rule of thumb, we say the shape of the shade should reflect the shape of your lamp. If it is angular, square or rectangular, a similar shaped shade that mirrors its lines will look better than a round one. If your lamp base is round or tapered, a sloping or straight round shade such as an Empire, French Drum or oval shade will suit it. As always, there is an exception to the rule and in this case, it is column and stick lamps which suit any shape of shade.
COLOUR
The fun part: which is entirely up to you. For some inspiration, we suggest taking a look at our latest fabric collections which now feature spicey linen tones and striking modern country patterns. Gentle greens and vibrant blues are just some of the brand-new hues ready to lift the darker corners of your home.
COLOURFUL BEDROOM ACCESSORIES TO CONSIDER