Lamps & Shades - Color Ideas Because they accent the general scheme by small brilliant spots, lamps and shades give a room its ultimate, telling touch. The color note can be strong, bringing out whatever color in the room one wishes pronounced; or, it may soften the general effect. In either capacity, lamps and shades are the magical, final essential to a perfect interior. 
Living-room lamp with crackleware base and glazed chintz shade.
Silk shades have a dual career; they may be one thing during the day and another at night. Thus, a shade of gray gauze is quiet and unobtrusive during the day's hours, but lit, an unexpected glow of color is shed over the room, due to a rich orange lining. An inkling of this transformation of colorful light is given by a plain scalloped band at the bottom edged with orange. This takes the place of a fringe and is an unusual and engaging substitute. Such a combination is excellent for a gray room. The usual choice in a gray room is rose tan being prohibitive, but sometimes rose will not work out with the rest of the color scheme. So the gray and orange combination is a pleasing variation. The lining must be heavy and of a full color value. A black or orange lacquered standard suits this shade admirably. 
Living-room lamp, white Italian pottery base, gauze shade with shell.
Striped silks are full of possibilities for shades. For the bedroom comes a striped dull robin's egg blue or sage green combined with deep cream and narrow lines of black. These shades may be made six sided with the silk drawn over the top to hide the bulb and ugly wires. The covered top throws a softened shadow upward, but reduces the amount of light. The bottom of the shade may be edged with a narrow uncut silk fringe; at the top edge the fringe may be cut away, leaving only the heading. If carefully sewed on this will not ravel. At the center top a little rosette may be made of the fringe. As a suitable standard use a wooden candlestick of deep cream with stripes of blue or green, as the case may be, and with a tiny line of black to give it the desired "snap." A small touch of black on a shade is always desirable as it keys up the color combination. A library shade can be made of striped Shiki silk combining mulberry, gold, cream and black, with a gold and black fringe. Used with a gray and white crackle bowl, it makes a handsome ensemble. Striped taffetas in pastel shades make up well for bedrooms or boudoir lamps when finished with a small ruche of the same silk. 
Black lacquer bedroom lamp with Japanese shade.
Plain taffeta of rose with a chiffon stretched or shirred over it also makes a good boudoir shade for a plain painted standard of ivory. There is something very feminine about taffetas and chiffon that makes them especially suited to boudoirs. A straight double fold of the chiffon showing the selvage edge is a new finish in place of the fringe. It always saves a great amount of bother and expense if a shade can be finished by a ruche or ruffle or a chiffon band, for the difficulty of matching fringes and guimpes is only too well known. One may also resort to metal galloon, but this cheapens a shade and gives it a department store look. 
For the library, dull gold Italian standard with amber shade interlined with orange and trimmed with moss edge.
Stiff taffeta pinked on either edge makes an attractive ruche. A fine quality of sateen may be treated in the same way and applied to a linen or cretonne shade, the color desired being brought out by the plain colored sateen. 
Dining-room candlesticks of antique ivory with parchment drum-shaped shades.
Metal laces and insertions may be made more interesting by running through them several strands of heavy silk floss. On a pale gold silk shade put a gold insertion and run through it strands of brilliant green and black. This gives just the smart finish needed. There are several combinations of silk that produce an indefinable but attractive coloring. Champagne lined with pink, yellow, rose or orange; gray lined with any of these; buff combined with strong blue - always excellent in a Colonial room; and yellow and mulberry make an excellent combination. 
Porch lamp of wrought iron, polychrome standard, parchment shade repeating the colors of the porch furnishings.
Shades should never be lined with dead white unless the greatest light possible is essential. Use a cream or any of the neutral tints that harmonize with the silk selected. It is well to use a cheese-cloth interlining, which adds to the richness and prevents the bulb from showing. A charming effect may be produced by interlining with a soft rose or orange or yellow cheesecloth. A figured cretonne or silk may be overlaid with a plain silk gauze. When unlit, the shade is plain, but when lit, the figures come out in a rather delightful uncertainty. This treatment is interesting for children's rooms. It could be worked out using a black silhouette of elves and fairies. Insert between two layers of gold silk gauze brilliant colored tissue papers cut in floral designs rather futuristic in feeling, the tissue petals overlapping one another, giving an interesting gradation of color. Cretonne may be transformed by applying several coats of shellac. The shellac fills up the pores, making the surface smooth, hard and translucent. This treatment, which is also waterproofing, makes a serviceable treatment for porch or garden lanterns. A shade thus antiqued and finished with a mixture of orange and white shellac will look not unlike old vellum. A black and white Chinese chintz can be treated in this manner; made up on a frame of Chinese lines, it has a distinctly oriental atmosphere about it. Yellow chintz also lends itself admirably to this type of shade. The same effect may also be produced by shellacing old Italian hand-printed paper sheets. The finish is smooth and antique and the printing irregular enough to be interesting. All these materials must be made on a flat surface, not a round one. Hand-painted vellum shades are serviceable and artistic and have the indisputable charm that all handwork possesses. Painted baskets and bunches of flowers and fruit on a soft background, such a lampshade finds its metier in a thousand places. A shade combining vellum and chintz can be made by fastening cut-out chintz figures to watercolor paper and lacquering it. This is inexpensive and can be made by an amateur who knows nothing of painting. Empire lampshades of painted tin are an innovation. Of course, they give no glow through the shade, but the inside, being painted white, sheds sufficient light for reading. A lamp of this type should be used on a wrought iron standard. Shades should not only suit the period and character of a room, but their number and size should suit the dimensions of the room as well. If a shade is of brilliant hue it must be smaller than one of neutral tone. It is always advisable to keep to bright colors in small shades, not in large ones. In a bedroom have the dresser and bedside shades to match, thus creating a feeling of unity and restfulness so desirable in a bedroom. Put six-sided apricot-colored shades on the candlesticks and a large one, but of the same proportions, on the bedside lamp. If side wall fixtures are used, put oblong shields on them. In this case a soft rose is preferable to a stronger shade else they will be too strongly silhouetted against the wall. Amber, yellow and rose in combination may be worked into entrancing shades. They give the same exquisite feeling of color subtleties that one gets in a tea rose. As a test for such elusive color combinations hold up two bits of silk in a spot where the shade or shield is to go. We will soon feel whether the color is right. Very often in a4 lavender or mulberry room the question of color for shades is difficult. With either of these dull gold will be successful and the color of the room may be repeated in the guimpe and trimmings. One must feel that the shades are tied to the room by a mutual color, even if this mutual color is merely suggested in the trimming. Quite apart from the questions of shape, size, material or decoration is the matter of placing the shade so that it will serve its right purpose. Shades give color spots to rooms, as was observed above. They can tone down or enliven the general air of a room both when lit and unlit, but if they are to serve an avowedly practical end, nothing else should stand in the way of attaining it. If a lamp is to be used for reading, see that the shade is so set that sufficient light is thrown in the right direction. Good decoration presupposes common sense, and a pair of eyes is more valuable than all the shades in the world no matter how decorative they may be. Next Page: Over Mantel Mirrors, etc. | 