Floor Lamps

Floor Lamps Setup Advice

Floor lamps

A floor lamp does what no ceiling fixture can: it puts light exactly where someone sits, without touching a switch, a ceiling box, or an electrician's schedule. In a finished room it is also the only lighting change that requires no work at all — unbox, plug in, done.

Two floor lamps here, and they solve opposite problems.

The two

Sunset Arc Glass Floor Lamp

An arc that throws light into a room rather than straight down. Carbon steel, glass and acrylic, with an 11.8" (30 cm) shade on an 11.8" base, and a height that adjusts from 51.2" to 66.9" (130–170 cm). Because it reaches across a space, it suits the corner beside a sofa where the ceiling light never quite lands — a 1–5 m² pool of light, placed deliberately.

It takes one E27 bulb, not included. That is an advantage: you choose the colour temperature (2700K–3000K for a living room), the brightness, and whether it dims.

LAVA Melt Sculptural LED Floor Lamp

A column rather than an arc. Iron and acrylic in gloss black, with a built-in LED in warm, neutral or cool white, in an 11" (28 cm) or 14.9" (38 cm) shade at 53.1" or 57" tall. Nothing to buy, nothing to match — the light source is already inside the object, and the whole thing reads as furniture sculpture as much as as a lamp.

UL certified, indoor use, one-year warranty.

Which one

• Need to light a seat that is far from the wall? Sunset Arc. Its reach is the point of the design.
• Want a piece that lights itself, with no bulb decisions? Lava Melt.
• Renting, or unwilling to change wiring? Both — neither needs a wiring point.
• Low ceiling, small room? Both work; a floor lamp never competes with ceiling height, which is why it is often the right answer in a compact flat.

Placing a floor lamp

Put it where the reading happens, not where the socket is — an extension cord across a walkway is a trip hazard, and a lamp behind a chair lights the wall instead of the page. Shade bottom should sit at roughly eye level when seated (about 40"–44" from the floor) so the bulb stays out of sight. For further arrangement ideas, see living room lighting and table and floor lamps.