Decorating With Lights and Shades

Candlestick, lamp and fixtures for electricity must accord with the lines of your architectures and furniture. The mantelpiece is the connecting link between the architecture and furnishing of a room. It is the architect contribution to the furnishing, and for this reason the keynote for decorator.

In the same way lighting fixtures are links between construction and decoration of a room, and can contribute to, or seriously divert from decorators design.

It is important that fixtures be so placed as to appear a part of a decoration and not merely to illuminate conveniently a corner of the room, a writing desk, table or piano.

In planning your house after arranging for proper wall space for your various articles of furniture, keep in mind always that lights will be needed and must be at the same time conveniently placed and distinctly decorative.

One is astonished to see how often the actual balance of a room is upset by the careless placing of electric fixtures. Therefore keep in mind when deciding upon the lighting of a room the following points:

- fixtures must follow inline style of architecture and furniture

- the position of fixtures on walls must carry out the architect scheme of proportion, line and balance

- the material used in fixtures, brass, gilded wood, glass or wrought iron must contribute to the decorators scheme of line and color

- as a contribution to color scheme the fixtures must be in harmony with the color of the side walls, so as not cut them up, and the shade should be a light note of color, not one of the dark notes when illuminated.

This bring us to the question of shades. The selecting of shapes and colors for shading the lights in your rooms is of the greatest importance, for then shades are one of the harmonics for striking important color notes, and their value must be equal by day and by night, that is, equally, even if different.

Some shades, beautiful and decorative by night, when illuminated lose their color and become meaningless blots in a room.

In ordering or making shades, be sure that you select colors and materials which produce a diffused light. A soft thin pink silk as a lining for a silk or cretonne shade is always successful, and if a delicate pink, never clashes with the colors on the outside.

When you decide upon the shape of your shades do not forget that successful results depend upon absolutely correct proportions.

Marjan Zemljic is owner of Home-decorating-ideas-and-tips.com and author of How to break into the interior design industry. In his book you will find out how you can do exactly that. For more home decorating ideas visit his website at http://www.home-decorating-ideas-and-tips.com and learn how to create the home of your dreams.