Light Everything, Not Just the Floor, with a Floor Lamp

When is a floor lamp not a floor lamp? When it’s on the floor! For a floor lamp to light the floor it has to be very short or lying on its side. They are called floor lamps as they stand on the floor.

Floor lamps are normally designed to the height where you can sit in a chair, read a book and the light would fall over your shoulder and illuminate the book. A perfect balance of style and function. This is the normal floor lamp design if constructed as a ‘downlight‘. If the shade points to the wall or is ‘upside-down’ and points to the ceiling it is an ‘uplight’.

Uplights are favored at the moment as you are not faced with seeing the starkness of the bulb. The main energy of the light is shone into the shade, the ceiling and wall and absorbs the harshness. What is left is a gentle dim light which subtly lights a space to match your mood. This can be exaggerated if a dimmer switch comes into play as you can have all levels of light.

As mentioned earlier, the floor lamp first was used as a oil lamp is early Victorian times as lighting for the study. It can also be used to add dimension to a room as it is not on the wall, floor or ceiling. It is a different height to regular lighting and can produce different effects. This can make a room totally different to a standard wall or ceiling light. For this reason, it has been a mainstay of the average house until the present day. It is one of the most versatile lamp styles on the market and comes in a myriad of different forms. No house is complete without one.