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Insider Tips: Choosing The Perfect Bedside Lamps
October 31, 2016
This may come as a surprise, but the process of choosing the right lamps for your bedside table is not nearly as simple as popping down to your favourite décor store and buying the ones you love the most.
Bedside lamps are often an afterthought when they should form part of your overall interior room design. We’d like to shed some light on three important aspects an Interior Design Consultant would consider when choosing bedside lamps.
Height
The height at which you put your bedside lamp is important for two reasons – aesthetics, and preservation of your eyesight!
It’s would be amiss of us to state that there is an absolute right or wrong height, mainly because side-tables, headboards and mattresses come in so many varying shapes and sizes. However, as a guideline, then try and find one where the bottom of the lampshade more or less lines up with your chin when you are sitting up in bed. This provides good reading light and ensures that you won’t be staring directly into the globe from a lamp that is too tall or too short.
Size
The lamp might be the perfect design, colour and height, but if the lamp base to bedside table top ratio is off then it will disrupt the balance of the whole room.
A large base that takes up most of the surface area of your side-table is both odd-looking and impractical, and a small lamp base on a large side-table can only work if it is balanced by other objects on the table. The same goes for the lampshade, use a larger lampshade on a large bedside table and vice versa.
Style
The body of the lamp can make a beautiful statement of its own, and this is often overlooked by the colour and size of the shade that you select.
Look around for different variations, pieces of art that might be used to create a bold statement or enhance a particular theme. An example would be to use a carved wooden vase as a base for an African décor theme.
Remember to have fun with your décor choices. You can mix and match bedside lamps and tables on either side of your bed, or you could even hang them down over your side tables – as long as they are the same height, but don’t limit yourself to traditional options. The lighting of a room can help create just the right ambience, so take your time finding the perfect bedside lamps for your room.
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Back in March of 2020, Bianca and Jana were dusting off their Fez’s and grabbing the pashminas out of storage in preparation to Rock the Casbah! However, as we all know and vividly remember - with March, came the eventual Covid shutdown, and instead of frolicking down the Moroccan streets, we all shut ourselves inside and watched the days tick by… 3 Years later, and now we can finally say - with conviction - that they’re going to Morocco at the start of September! This blog, filled with excitement and curiosity about all the weird and wonderful curios they might find, and endless sourcing they’ll do, stays as a reminder that sometimes plans change, things go awry and there’s not much you can do about it other than persevere - and that we did! So, here’s Bianca and Jana’s innermost thoughts about the trip, 3 years before it came to fruition, enjoy :) We've got our passports out and Jana has already picked out what she's going to wear each day… Come March [September] we'll be heading north with Air France to the Kingdom of Morocco, bright eyed and bushy tailed as we make our base in the ancient city of Marrakesh (also known as Marrakech to the French, but we're not French, so we'll go with the English version until all that fuss about Brexit is sorted out) - This turned into a year long negotiations trade, and now us outsiders would pay nearly double what we used to if we visit the UK - thankfully our flight is direct!! We'll be looking for inspiration and will be investigating what's there that we could possibly bring back to The Hoed. We can't wait to experience the atmosphere and afro-arabic influences of this amazing place as we visit the celebrated souks and off-the-beaten track artists and craftsmen that make Marrakesh so special. We're desperate to see the beautifully hand-crafted furniture, textiles, fabrics, rugs, carpets, objets d'art, accessories, lighting… anything that catches our eye and could possibly be brought back south. Berber mats and rugs are definitely on our list, as are the kind of furnishings you might find in a gorgeous Bedouin tent. If you think about it, the Bedouin refined the art of "glamping" into an artform - fabulous carpets on the ground, soft, billowing fabrics hung here and there, plump cushions spread on the ground, intricate leatherwork and carved wood, patinated metal… Total Glamping vibes! We just love all of it and will be tracking as much of it down as we can. We'll also have an eye or three out for wonderful ceramics and glassware and wonderful lamps that give off soft, filtered light. For us it's about workmanship, so we'll hopefully be finding the people who make furniture and ceramics using techniques that have been passed down over countless generations meaning that everything we look at will have its own, and its own special story. Our mission is to share those stories with you and, if it's feasible, bring some of that special workmanship home to the Rainbow Nation. We're most definitely inspired and are sure this is going to be a truly special trip! Counting the sleeps till then! Less than a month to go now - we will be keeping the updates going on our social channels as well as another few blog posts to explain in detail our wild adventures - Stay tuned!
A safari theme never really runs out of viewing time and is particularly popular for interiors at the moment. The warm, earthy tones give a sense of comfort and the accessories offer the anticipation of travel and adventure.
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