A lighting tour of my home

I have four obsessions in life: sweets, jewellery, luxe travel, and really great lighting. I have crushes on beautiful and weird lights: pendants, chandeliers, wall, floor, the list goes on. I usually have 4-5 lights in my Etsy basket at any given time, even when I don’t have a project on the go.

In my mind, most corners in a home could benefit from extra lighting, so table and floor lamps can easily find a space to slot in. Pendants are obviously trickier, but still worth swapping out or storing if they're that good. I’ve even been known to construct them myself or carry them home from my travels on my lap. 

So let's get into some of the lights in my home...

Lighting my home

Of course, everyone has different ‘rules’ for lighting their homes. These are mine:

• Everything should be on a dimmer.

• Low level lighting. Always.
  
  

I have beautiful ‘big’ lights in every room, but in truth, I hardly ever turn them on. I much prefer the ambient glow of low-level lighting: table lamps, wall lights, and floor lamps. I’m always messing with the lighting levels, perfecting the right ambiance for the particular occasion, be that a casual meeting at the dining table or an evening snuggled up in front of the TV. There isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution when it comes to lighting, which is where dimmers come into play. Being able to alter lighting levels really subtly can make a huge difference when it comes to mood lighting. You want to turn up the brightness for reading but down for drinking wine with friends, for example.

Chris loves Julia coined the phrase 'lamp o'clock' and it couldn't be more accurate for me. Whichever room I'm in, I'll move around setting the perfect lighting for everything from cooking dinner to reading on the sofa, soaking in the tub, and slipping into bed.

But what about the lights themselves? Without any further ado, here's a selection of my favorite lights in the new house...

Living room pendant

I needed a particularly stand-out light here, to complement the ornate ceiling rose. I came across this pendant on a website and single-mindedly tracked it down, trying to speak Italian with google translate over the phone. I don’t know the name of the store, sadly, but I do know that it came up as ‘Marco Polo’ on my credit card bill.

The other contender for in here was the Ruemmler no 556 pendant, or a cheaper DIY version that I would have covered in hand-painted silk.

Josef Hoffman palm chandelier

Anyone who's followed FL for some time will recognize this guy - he hasn't left my side for nearly a decade, even making an appearance in the places we rented while doing the renovation. 

I bought it from an eBay seller in Connecticut and asked a friend to pick it up and store it for me until I could travel to collect it from her. The seller had originally wanted to build a crate to ship in it, which would have cost as much as the light itself! I was determined to get it back to London myself, so removed the screws and folded it in on itself before wrapping it in bubble wrap. I brought it onto the plane as hand luggage, and the very kind flight attendants placed it in the cupboard where they store their own bags (with an eye roll). Once home, I simply had to unfold it and reattach the screws.

Carlo Nason kitchen pendants

I have a strict rule against buying plain clear glass to hang from the ceiling, as it’s so hard to clean. I once even removed the glass panels from a lantern lampshade as I couldn’t bear the visible dust. Textured glass, like these two Carlo Nason pendants above my kitchen counter, does a much better job of hiding the dust. I was worried they'd be too big when I first got them home, but they’re actually perfect given the scale of the room. They seem to be everyone's favorite when they come into the house too!

Barovier & Toso pendant

The 1940’s Barovier & Toso glass pendant hanging above the bathtub in my master suite was a real bargain! They’re usually around €3000 but I found this one in Italy for just €80. This was another find that I carried home on a plane – this time, perched on my lap for the short journey back to Heathrow. I really struggled to find an electrician who would rewire it to hang above a bath. So many told me no, but as usual I pushed on and eventually found someone to fit it for me. It catches the light beautifully on a sunny day.

Bedroom wall lights

My Pinterest is filled with both antique and contemporary lights that I’ve fallen in love with, which I then try my best to track down. My bedroom wall lights, situated either side of our bed, are perhaps the best example of the lengths I'll go to when I really fall in love with a light but can’t pin it down to purchase. I did a reverse image search to discover that the light I loved was by Josef Frank, but I couldn’t find a pair of them anywhere, so I decided to DIY. I bought the curved brass pieces on Etsy, which came with glass globes that I removed. I then rewired the fittings so that the cable and cord hung down lower. For the shades, I commissioned Eloise Scotland to make custom shades to the size and shape I wanted. She used antique linen with raw seams and exposed stitches - such beautiful detail up close! Eloise also made a beautiful linen shade for the lamp on the desk in the guest bedroom, to replace an old silk shade.

Designing my own lights

As you can see, when I fall in love with a light or get an idea in my head, I’m like a dog with a bone. Somehow, I’ll find a way to make it work. I’ll ask ten people if they can do something for me and they’ll say no, but I’ll always keep hunting for that eleventh person who will say yes. If I can’t find exactly what I’m looking for, I’ll look for inspiration from old designs and figure out how I can make something similar myself (such as with my bedroom wall lights).

Because this is an obsession, I’m always falling in love with and coveting other people’s lighting collections. Interior designer Tamsin Johnson has one of my favourite collections. She’ll come to Europe on sourcing trips and take her finds back to Australia, and just has a really great eye for finding beautiful lights. Other lighting that's currently sparking inspiration for me includes In Common With’s Vera wall sconce, old Murano antique glass lamps and glass shades with little contrast color rims.

Sometimes, I’ll stumble upon a design that I love the idea of, but it’s not quite right for my home. I’m currently searching for beautiful old glass vases which I’m planning on experimenting with using as lamp shades – I’ll turn them upside down, create a hole for the wiring and attach them to stands.

My search for new lighting is by no means over - I’m still adding new discoveries to my Etsy basket and Pinterest board all the time, and always have one eye scouring flea markets for unique lights. I’ll keep you updated via Instagram of any new lighting purchases and projects.