We will share with you five tips on how to decorate with buffet lamps,  so let’s go ahead and get started.

1. Let me talk about size and placement of your lamps

Buffet lamps are gonna be taller and sometimes they’re slimmer, it depends on the size of your sideboard. If it’s a really big sideboard you can get away with a bigger base buffet lamp, but if it’s a smaller sideboard the lamps have a smaller base on them. You also want to pay attention to your lampshades which we’re gonna talk about that in a minute.

Typically in a dining room you have overhead lighting, so when I’m choosing a design I pull the focus away from a big hutch because I know if I pick a sideboard in the room I can add more lighting. Another point about tip number one – with size and placement, when decorating with lamps, sometimes the lamps tend to be too small for where they’re placed, and sometimes they’re too big. If the lamp is pretty and cute but a little too small for an area, replace it with one that works better.

If it’s a tall buffet lamp and if it is a narrow console, and if the lamp is also narrow, it will mimic the size of the console. If the shade is narrow, and if you have a small piece that you’re going to put up against the wall you can’t do a round shape because it’s going to push the lamp away from the wall.

I get a lot of questions about whether a lamp is too big and there is artwork on the wall or a mirror, or even a clock, is that a no-no to have it sitting in front. I think it looks better that way.

2. It’s About style

This is probably my favorite tip because I love lamps and I love lamps because they can be their own artwork, so I have this lamp which is made of cast iron and I can’t pick it up with one hand which I love, but let me show you tell you; a beautiful black cast iron lamp sitting on top of a distressed wood table. The contrast is beautiful.

Another lamp I picked up that I actually like, because I think it’s its own artwork. Is an old fire extinguisher that a gentleman made for me and made a lamp out of it, it has its own character and it’s its own personality. I love it and I tell you what, I’m not usually really really picky about lamps as far as they have to be symmetrical. Except in the bedroom each side of the bed generally has the same exact lamps, that’s where I have to keep my lamps the same. I don’t know why that kind of drives me a little crazy.

3. Let me talk to you about lamp shades.

A lot of Lampshades are in linen these days, and in a beige color. But there are some lampshades coming out now with a little bit of color. Imagine a bluish green lamp with a mercury glass base with a beautiful contrast of the lamp sitting on a white table with a mesh wire shade. It’s just so unique and beautiful. Also a lamp with distressed metal is just as beautiful and it’s a zone statement piece.

4.Tip number four is about light bulbs.

I love to have ambient lighting in every room. Especially in the dining room, typically you only have the chandelier. So I’m gonna suggest putting buffet lamps in there now. I’m going to put 40 watt bulbs in them because 60 watts and 100 watts are gonna be too bright and too glaring. If you need a lamp in a living room or a bedroom and you need it for reading you’re gonna need the 60 watt or higher but if it’s just for ambiance go with the 40 watt. Also Edison bulbs are very popular now and you can even find them in tons of home-improvement stores. Many lamps wouldn’t be half as cool if it wasn’t for these tall edison lamps glowing inside.

5. Give it a lamp makeover

If you’ve already got a lamp that’s kind of cool and you like the base of it and you like the style of it, give it a lamp makeover. If you’ll give me just a second I’m going to show you how to do that. I’m thinking about one of the very first nice lamps I ever bought a few years after I was married. Fast-forward about 10 or 15 years and it was a little dated. While it was pretty at the time with dark bronze and the dark shade, it just became dated so I decided I’m gonna buy a new lamp. But the more I thought about it the more I thought this is a great lamp. I thought I’m just gonna give it a makeover and save some money. So I replaced the shade with this lighter linen shade and then I painted the base of the lamp. I painted it with chalk very neatly, and did you know chalk paint comes in a spray can which made this job so easy. You just want to make sure that you use painters tape and you wrap up the socket really well because you don’t wanna get any paint in there. After it dried I realized, there was a beautiful bronze color under it. So I took some sandpaper and I just sanded the edges and all around the lamp just a little bit to give it a distressed look, and then I just sprayed a coat of clear matte acrylic over it. For like, oh my goodness probably fifteen dollars I got a great lamp makeover.

So when you’re looking at an old lamp, consider whether or not you should throw it away, or whether you can I give it a wonderful makeover. There was another lamp that I did and it was really really brass, I knew brass was kind of coming back in style but this one was a really loud brass – and I used rust-oleum oil rubbed bronze and used spray-paint in the base of that one. I replaced the lampshade and I was done.

I want to share with you and everyone, I am definitely a lamp person and I have lamps in every room. It’s the one thing I can’t live without, They create beautiful ambiance and they make me happy. Truth be told though, they don’t make my husband quite as happy. When it’s time to come to bed, he says it takes him 15 minutes to run around the whole house and turn the lights off. So what we found was a lamp remote that comes with five plugs. You plug in each lamp and it turns off all of the lamps at once, you can even program it to have each little lamp turn off. So who knew this awesome gadget that would be a marriage saver.

I hope you have a wonderful day.