Consider adding light as art—or art as light with this gorgeous objet d’art. By day it poses as art, by night it’s breathtaking. This cordless lamp is a rechargeable battery-powered lamp that will be a conversation piece. Its cordless design can become the centerpiece for your dining table or set high on a floating shelf.
If you’re looking for a designer piece that takes the concept of room jewelry to the next level, check out the Melt line of lighting curated by Tom Dixon from the Swedish design collective FRONT. This truly stunning art piece won’t suffice as your favorite reading lamp, but it will certainly elevate your space with a mesmerizing dimension.Â
These lamps help to light a living room with no overhead lighting, but certainly won’t replace the power you could get with an overhead fixture. If you like the idea of a rechargeable lamp, be sure to look for the lumen’s output. They may not be much brighter than landscape lighting, but if you want ambiance and portability a cordless lamp will be a romantic addition to your home. Especially if the electricity goes out!
What to Consider When Buying Overhead Lighting
When looking for ways to light up your life, without overhead lighting, think of your room as a painting, photograph or a scene on the stage. Light up those dark corners and create pools and puddles of light to make the scene more interesting. Eliminate the shadows or bounce some sparkles off of the ceiling or walls. Lighting creates a mood and the good news is that you can switch it up. With the push of a button, you are the magic behind the curtain, controlling what the audience sees and where their focus is directed. Add a floor lamp to that dark corner to illuminate the action, give your artwork the attention it deserves or set the stage with a magical reading corner. Â
Furthermore, light bends and bounces. If you need more light in your space, a lamp or pendant that is open at the top will send its beams to the ceiling where it will bounce and create more illumination in the space. Whereas a hooded shade will only direct the light downward, essentially cutting the output of the bulb in half.
And when you need task lighting in a room without overhead lighting, look for enough output (or lumens) that the fixture is capable of emitting. Light bulbs have traditionally been measured in lumens and color temperature. In filmmaking, a 5000 Kelvin fixture is used to simulate sunlight. In residential lighting, a 3000K bulb is a cooler bright white, whereas a 2700 bulb gives off a warmer glow. Since light is measured on a color spectrum 5000K is on the cool blue side and 2700K is closer to the red side, making the light appear warmer. It’s like editing a picture on your smartphone—warm it up or cool it down. You have the same control over the live shot of your house. But be aware, the color temperature of the light may make your wall color or furnishings appear different.
Since the advent of light-emitting diodes, more commonly known as LED lights, reading the label on a bulb has become a little more confusing. The lumens is the amount of light that the source emits. A light bulb that specifies 820 lumens is approximately equivalent to an old-school incandescent 60-watt lamp (even if the LED only uses 9 watts of power). For instance, in the kitchen, a 100-watt bulb with 1600 lumens output may not be enough light to light the entire room (or see the dirt on the floor). But it will certainly give you enough light to do the task at hand. You might need five times that amount of light in the kitchen. In that case, look for a multi-light fixture that can pump out more brightness to illuminate the entire space. Overhead lighting won’t help those dark corners, like under the cabinet, though. This is where you need to add a pool of task lighting. But be sure to check that color temperature and please, try to avoid fluorescent lighting.