torchieres and other portable floor lamps

When planning lighting for your home, floor lamps can help. They are excellent to add light to darker areas of larger rooms and to produce indirect lighting. And they are great decorative elements.

Torchieres lamps

Torchieres are portable tall floor lamps, typically casting light upwards. But some models project light otherwise (see image).

Uses

Torchieres can be very decorative and an easy way of getting general lighting without glare.

Since typical torchieres open upwards, you can light up large areas with just one lamp. This strategy may involve indirect lighting (lighting the room through the ceiling or even walls), which is great to get special styles and glare-free illumination.

Torchieres are mostly used, with advantage, in living rooms, family rooms and bedrooms.

Illuminating darker spots

Torchieres and other floor lamps can easily illuminate and decorate darker spots in a room, without any adaptation or requirement - except a… nearby outlet.

Note: the big advantage of floor lamps is in their higher flexibility: we can move and locate them right where we need them.

Other uses

Floor lamps can be used for task lighting or even accent lighting. It depends on their own design, the way they cast the light around them, and on their height and location relatively to reading chairs or tables where reading or other task is done…

Types of light-bulbs

It’s increasingly common the use of Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) with floor portable lamps. LEDs are also a great alternative.

These lights are energy-efficient solutions, contrary to incandescent bulbs (halogen or standard). The lightbulb issues for this type of fixtures are similar to those of other portable. See: Table and Desk Light Portables.