Indoor Home Lighting Fixtures

Indoor Home Lighting Fixtures

Nothing in home furnishing has shown such advance in recent years as lighting fixtures. We are beginning to understand the part they play in decoration and - what is equally important - the comfort and convenience they add to living. Go into an old-fashioned lighting fixture store and see the monstrosities that once were perpetrated. You will marvel that the sense of a previous generation ever permitted them to pass unchallenged.

The first step in re-doing a house is to rip out every bad fixture and replace with a new one. Green beetleback hanging chandeliers over the dining-table and showy affairs of frosted and iridescent glass entwined with gilt scrolls dominating the living room - these are the eyesores with which suburbanites and apartment-tiers are continually confronted. Dispose of such hideous affairs, cut the fixture off at the ceiling and cap or plaster up the hole. In its stead use side lights. Or, if the complete removal of the fixture is not feasible, substitute for the beetleback shade a soft flat silk shade with a deep fringe and cover the drop wire with a cord to match.

Lighting by side fixtures is a fashion that has come to stay because side lights give a more pleasant, convenient and altogether more serviceable illumination than a center ceiling chandelier. Side fixtures light each side of the room and the amount of illumination may be easily regulated. To read and sew by, they provide a more direct lighting than any method thus far conceived.

A reception or breakfast room fixture with brilliant flowers.

In rooms that require a great amount of light, such as drawing-rooms, the center light will prove more effectual. But even such a light should be supplemented by side wall fixtures. Nothing is more elegant than a crystal chandelier reflected again and again in mirrors and crystal side fixtures that add to the general brilliancy.

Exquisite for a drawing room with crystals and black mountings. A revival of a charming style.

The case for indirect lighting has many advocates. It is unquestionably a pleasant, easy light for the eyes, but it lights into prominence a ceiling that, from a decorative standpoint, is best kept unobtrusive. Even when the ceiling is decorated the very charm of beams or elaborate stucco and stenciled design lies in their being obscure. Under direct lighting we find that the beams are merely stained, instead of grown old with age and the smoke of countless fires on the hearth, and the decorations, rich and elegant in obscurity, show blatant stenciled application and crude colors. Moreover, indirect central lighting affords no variety of tone. If, instead, we have a light of rich yellow in one corner of the room and an apricot in another, we get the charm of varied change which is far more interesting than the illumination provided by obviously one-tone white lights.

A dining-room model. Frame to match color of room. Mirror of etched glass.

Where the house or apartment is still under construction and one is free to choose the fixtures and their placing, several general rules of arrangement should be observed. While the average height for the outlet for side fixtures is six feet above the floor, a variance of six inches below to accommodate the stature of the family is both permissible and desirable. If the arms of the fixture are inverted or turned down, the outlet hole may be somewhat higher than six feet. The height of the ceiling has also to be considered: with a nine-foot ceiling the outlet should be no more than five and a half feet from the floor.

An English model in silver or bronze for a living-room, library or hall.

A better effect is gained by using a double fixture than a single, which is apt to look spotty when lit. Several double brackets may be supplemented by a few single ones, according to the illumination requirements of the room.

The arms of double brackets should spread sufficiently to allow several inches between the sockets. If the sockets are eight inches apart they permit the use of shades or globes, otherwise an all-over shield would have to be used. With two bulbs thus shaded, the light is soft and more concentrated.

For a room eighteen feet square, four double brackets will afford sufficient light; all need not be used except on grand occasions. Used in a dining-room in conjunction with four table candles or candles on the serving-table, the lighting effect is at once adequate and charming.

In the living-room, reading lamps are necessary in addition to side fixtures. Base outlets may be arranged for and the wires run under the rugs. Do not be persuaded into using the regular side fixtures with cords coming out from them for the table lights; they disfigure the wall and are unpleasantly conspicuous. Any mechanic can run a wire along a door or window trim and paint it to match the woodwork, but the base outlet plan is far more convenient. Have a general idea where you want your lights to be, and arrange your outlets accordingly. If a table is to stand on a rug, a hole can be made in the rug and buttonholed and the wire slipped through. There are then no wires to trip over or be untidy. The finished effect will be permanent, an appearance that all householders desire.

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