The Black Wall Sconce We Keep Moving Around the House
This one has moved house more times than any of us, and none of those moves had anything to do with the sconce itself. It has lived above a headboard,…
Pendant Lights and Low Ceilings: The Head Bump Test
I bought a pendant light for my dining nook that looked exactly right in the photo. Black metal, this big sculptural cage shape, hanging low over a little round table…
Pairing Floor Lamps: Matched or Mixed?
I was vacuuming around the arc lamp in my living room on a Sunday afternoon, the kind of Sunday where you tell yourself you’re just tidying and then four hours…
The Black Floor Lamp That Earned Its Place at Home
There was a proper argument the day someone turned up with a black floor lamp for the corner that had been empty, and therefore fine, for about two years. The…
The Ordinary Light Switch in a Bathroom
I counted the other day, mostly out of boredom and partly because my nephew asked why I had a drawer specifically for old switch plates, and the number came to…
Two Chandeliers, One Room: Grand or Gaudy?
Carla stopped dead in my dining room doorway last spring, took one look up, and said, “Isla. Why are there two chandeliers in here. Did one multiply.” She wasn’t wrong…
Two Floor Lamps in the Living Room
I bought one floor lamp in 2011, decided it looked lonely on its own next to the armchair, and solved the problem by buying a second one three years later…
Outdoor Floodlights Indoors
I was in the garage on a Tuesday night trying to fix the pull cord on the shop light, the cheap clamp one from the hardware store that’s been hanging…
Bringing Outdoor String Lights Indoors
I counted them last week, mostly out of curiosity and slightly out of dread, and it’s fourteen. Fourteen strands of outdoor string lights currently living in a tote in my…
Wallpaper Lampshade: The Craft Project Idea
I set fire to a lampshade once. Not dramatically, no flames licking the ceiling, but enough scorching on a scrap of William Morris style wallpaper that the whole apartment smelled…