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How to Choose a Lampshade Colour and Pattern

The question I get asked most after size is colour. Usually it arrives as a photo of a corner of a room, with the message “what goes here?” So this is the thinking I do every time someone sends me that photo.

Start with the light, not the room

A lampshade is the only object in your room that you see in two completely different states: switched off in daylight, and glowing after dark. Most people choose for the first state and are then surprised by the second.

Warm colours like ochre, coral, pink, amber and red glow warmer when they are lit. Our Crimson Climber is the clearest example, a shade that reads deep and rich by day and turns a room rosy and welcoming at night. Cool colours like slate, green and navy hold their colour by day, then dim to something moodier after dark, letting the light come through the gathers rather than the fabric. Our Green and Navy Linen shade does exactly that.

If the lamp is for evening reading, go warm. If it is mostly there to be looked at, this matters less.

The three safe routes, and the brave one

Match a minor colour, not the main one. Pick a colour that already appears in the room in small doses, like cushions, a rug border, or the spines of your books. The shade joins the conversation instead of shouting over it. This is the route I recommend most often.

Tone with the wall. A moss green or heritage green shade on a soft green wall, oatmeal on warm white. Quiet, layered and very current. Our Moss Climber was made with exactly this in mind, and it works beautifully in bedrooms.

Neutral with texture. If the room already has pattern, a solid shade in oatmeal, cream or white lets the gathers do the talking. Our White Silk and Cotton shade exists for exactly these rooms.

The brave route is deliberate contrast. Lilac against ochre walls, a warm amber in a cool room. Choose one contrast object per room, and commit to it. This is where the Lilac Coil, the Amberwave and the Ochre Climber earn their keep.

Pattern: scale is everything

Small, dense prints, like ditsy florals and small block prints, read as texture from across a room, and they suit bedside lamps that sit close to you. Our Mini Sanderson Toile is a lovely example on a small shade. Larger prints, like a full toile or a bold leaf motif, need a bigger shade and a little viewing distance to breathe, so they belong on table and console lamps in living spaces.

Two honest rules from the workshop. The first is that gathering changes a pattern. The pleats compress a print, so a fabric that looks sparse laid flat looks rich once it is gathered. That is why gathered shades forgive bold patterns better than a flat drum shade does. The second is that pattern belongs on the shade or near it, not both. A toile shade on a table of patterned objects against patterned wallpaper stops being a choice and starts being noise. When a room is already busy, reach for a plain shade instead and let the colour and the gather do the work.

What lasts

Trend colours come and go faster in lighting than you would think. If you want a shade you will still love in ten years, patterned florals on natural cotton, warm solids and toiles have outlasted every trend cycle I have watched. Fluorescents and cold greys have not.

If you are still stuck

Send me the photo of the corner. I mean it. That is how half our shades find their homes. Reply to any Workshop Notes email, or start with these:

June
Enclave Decor Co.