Spotted a pretty good post on Freshome today, highlighting a few tips on how to achieve that casually designed, “shabby chic” look.
A combination of textured worn surfaces, loose furniture arrangement based around comfort and a faded clasical elegance seems to be the key.
Might I suggest our table lamps fit the bill perfectly?
Just spotted this pair of magnificent large table lamps in a room designed by australian interior designer, Marco Meneguzzi.
I would love to get hold of a pair of beauties like these – they just look so good against the dark walls of this gentlemen’s dressing room.
I’m trying to source some interesting ceramic lamps to add to our range as we speak and this type of elegant, slightly ethnic look, is just what I’m after.
P.S. How good does that table look too?
One of the hottest products on show at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) is the Trapeze LED table light – a collaboration between designer Peter Stathis and manufacturer JOBY (famous for their gorilla pod camera stands).
Certainly original, this lamp offers a brilliant, even, light for tasks or for reading and yet consumes a miserly 8W of power for 40,000 hours.
Perfect on a desk in an office , I must say I do struggle with it as a bedside lamp as shown above.
With LED technology forging ahead at an alarming rate, the Philips AmbientLED “bulb” being a case in point, there is sure to be an explosion of radical new lighting design.
My only hope is that original table lamps of the future retain some of the timeless elegance shown by lamps of the past – some of the current crop of lamps, with their tiresomely ironic design, leave me cold I’m sorry to say.
In my never ending quest for new table lamps, I stumbled across Stephen Gerould’s website today.
I’m really drawn by the simplicity and elegance of his lamps – the glazes in particular are wonderful and in such a wide range of colours.
Stephen’s studio is based in Portland, Oregon in the US, so not exactly local, but I’m sorely tempted to order a pair to sell here at Original Table Lamp Co.
What do you guys think?
Might you be interested in a pair of these, if I can get them made with a UK spec bayonet fitting and plug?
I had an interesting question from a customer yesterday – how strong are the papier mache table lamps and do they dent easily?
It’s actually surprising just how robust the lamps are, given that they are made from paper.
Not unlike plywood, the laminated nature of the papier mache gives the lamp base walls, great structural stability.
This doesn’t mean that they won’t get dented if you drop one onto a sharp object or from a great height!
A case in point is this lamp, which unfortunately was damaged when I dropped it against the corner of a table.
As you can see, the outer layers of paper and the lacquer coat have prevented a perforation of the lamp and the intricate pattern camouflages the dent fairly well – it’s still super annoying, given how rare these lamps are and how much work goes in to them.
The smaller papier mache globe lamps have a quantity of sand inside them to act as ballast and keep them stable, counter-balancing the shade – this works very well and there is no reason to treat these lamps in any way more gently than you might a porcelain lamp.
P.S. If you are interested in buying this slightly damaged lamp, it’s yours with a lampshade for just £90 including VAT and Free UK Mainland Delivery (usual price £132) – SORRY NOW SOLD!
One of the trickiest aspects of selling table lamps online, is how to show the relative sizes of the lamps.
Once each photograph of a lamp is cropped to show the most detail, it can look as though a 12″ high lamp is the same size as 3′ high table lamp.
I pondered for a while about how to get around this problem and at first, considered placing a ruler alongside each lamp.
The trouble with this approach is that even if you show something as 23″ high, most people still can’t relate that measurement to real life.
And then it came to me…
What object do most people have in their home which tends to be a standard-ish size?
A wine bottle!
So, I spent a joyful couple of hours yesterday, photographing each of the lamps with a bottle of 2010 The Gooseberry Bush (South African Colombard/Sauvignon Blanc blend available from Laithwaites and very, very drinkable) – please note that the wine bottle is unopened and full in all of the shots!
Hopefully, this should give you a much better feel for how large or small the table lamps are but for the more pedantic amongst you, the bottle is 300mm tall (just under a foot).
After what seems like forever (it’s actually 10 months), the site is now accepting sales online via PayPal.
It has taken me this long to find a shopping cart/ e-commerce solution that I was happy with, having been through all the usual suspects.
I’m happy to say that Lemonstand is simply the best shopping cart software on the market bar none and once I’ve fully absorbed its capabilities, this site will look and perform better and better.
Please let us know if there are any glitches or problems when you’re trying to purchase from the site and we’ll do our best to get them sorted as quickly as we can.
Now go and buy table lamps!
As you can probably tell, there are some major changes here on The Original Table Lamp Company website.
For the next couple of days, the main site won’t be available as the ecommerce system is installed and configured.
Once we’re happy that the new system is working, we’ll unleash it and hopefully make some sales before Christmas.
Thanks for your continued patience.