Never underestimate the importance of lamps for your home. Choosing the right lamp base and shade can make a dramatic difference to the look, feel and function of your space. Ambient lighting introduces light, cosiness and atmosphere and can really draw attention to or from a specific area, but the lamp base and shade should also be a beautiful styling feature in their own right. There are so many options of lamp materials to chose from, from wood and ceramic to our newly launched brass lamps, available both in an antique brass gold or bronze finish. Different materials, heights and designs can help create a more relaxed or country look, whereas metals can sit very comfortably in both country and contemporary settings. If you are styling a console you might favour a symmetrical look of a matching pair - taller but more narrow column shaped lamps such as our new Cleo tend to suit this look well - whereas if you go with a single lamp set to one side you should scale up with a larger, wider based lamp, such as our Carlo lamp base.
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Tips for picking the right shade

When choosing a shade, as a general rule of thumb, use the approximate ratio of one third to two thirds. So for a tall narrow table lamp you might typically pick a shade that is about half the height of the base (so when assembled the shade is one third of the overall height) but if you have a low wide base you might chose a shade that is twice the height of it - the ratio works well inverted in that scenario. Floor lamps like our beautiful Casper, Carmel, Callie and Calvin work well with 45 and 55cm shades - if in doubt go bigger. Never chose a lampshade without seeing what it looks like when the lamp is on - a beautifully lined shade really makes a difference to "light-throw"!