Does your house seem dull even after furnishing it with expensive furniture? You can tell something is off but can’t place your finger on it.
Lighting. How well-lit your room determines its mood and ambiance.
You need more than one light source to brighten a room, especially if your house doesn’t receive a lot of natural light.
Floor lamps are a great way to compliment your overhead light and brighten dark corners. Besides making a room feel warm and inviting, they are a great focal point for any room.
Read on to find out all about floor lamps and what type of floor lamp gives the most light to brighten your rooms.
Floor Lamps That Provide a Lot of Light for a Dark Room
The following types of floor lamps can brighten your room:
1. Traditional Floor Lamp with a Tall Pole
They provide a lot of light suitable for a dark room because the tall pole elevates it from the ground, positioning light higher in the room. In turn, the light fills the entire room.
Since the floor lamps have a large lampshade to match the pole size, it does not restrict light in one place. The top and bottom openings are big enough to allow light to spread out over a wider area.
In addition, they support bulbs of higher wattage; hence you can use bright bulbs, making a dark room bright.
2. Tree Floor Lamp with Multi Hanging Bulbs
Tree floor lamps have multiple lamp heads spread out in different directions with two to five bulbs.
Multiple bulbs mean a stronger light. Coupled with a tall pole, the hanging bulbs may reflect light upwards, sideways, and downwards lighting a dark room well.
Since the lamp has arms that face different directions, the lamp increases the coverage area, causing light to spread over a wide area and increase strength compared to a single bulb.
Some bulbs are positioned at different heights, producing light at high, medium, and low levels. It creates contrast for most light which is excellent for a dark room.
3. Overhead Hanging Floor Lamp with Arched Arm
An arc lamp has a long pole that bends over, forming an arc shape. It hangs overhead, casting light on a table or sofa.
This type of lamp is excellent because you can direct light to where you want it to go. The lamp’s shade makes the light focus downwards, creating a bright and soft glow in the whole room.
They are great for dark corners and small rooms because of their shape and bright light.
You can place it behind or next to a sofa because it extends light far from its base.
For closer light, you can adjust the height of the pole and push it nearer to the chair.
Floor Lamps That Brighten Dark Corners and Small Spaces
Small spaces and dark corners can be fabulous with the following lamps:
1. Floor Lamp with Shelves and Tables
Floor lamps with shelves are a stylish way to poop life to a dark corner or radiate a small room. They are versatile and functional at the same time.
Apart from lighting a room, the shelves or table provide storage space for books or display for decor items making your area appear brighter. With overhead lighting and books closer, you get drawn to the room.
They are excellent for small spaces because they combine a table or shelf with a lamp, saving on space and reducing clutter in a room.
2. Torchiere Floor Lamp with Upward Light
The torchiere floor lamp has a shade facing upwards to focus light to the ceiling, which reflects light to the entire room creating a soft, warm ambiance.
It is excellent for providing a lot of light to a room, making it great for a small or dark corner since light will be reflected to radiate the entire space. It’s not designed to light a specific place.
The tall pole takes light closer to the ceiling, increasing the light reflected, creating a bright effect.
3. Pharmacy Floor Lamp with Leaf Lamphead
A pharmacy floor lamp provides a very bright light focused on a specific space for precision, making it perfect for a small room.
It has a brass or bronze-finished pole, straight like a traditional lamp, but at the top of the bar, it has an arm or more that branches horizontally.
The arm can swing to extend the head of the lamp or fold back in nearer the pole.
The head, which is also metallic, is angular or round-shaped for bright task lighting.
The lamp is versatile, giving you options of focusing light for reading, crafts, or working on tasks that need dedicated light. You can pivot it to light where you want.
When you’re not using the focused light, you can fold the arm to just light a dark corner.
Choose Floor Lamp with Most Light Based on Rooms
Which lamp goes where? The right lamp for a room fits in well to accentuate it.
1. Tripod Floor Lamp for Bedrooms
Thanks to its stable base, a tripod floor lamp is an excellent addition for bedrooms.
Whether you want to light a dark corner or add an accent piece in your bedroom, a tripod floor lamp will transform your room, making it bright and exciting.
Placed next to a bedroom chair, the lamp provides enough light for reading a book. You can put it on your bedside if you don’t want several lamps in the room because the tripod floor lamp can handle high wattage for bright light.
Matching it with a table lamp helps achieve different light levels for a soft ambiance in the bedroom.
2. Downward Task Floor Lamp for Dark Office
Focused light leads to more productivity in an office because it enables you to read or do work that requires fine precision with ease.
Downward task floor lamp does not cast light everywhere, making it great for a poorly lit office.
The downward lampshade has a flexible gooseneck, which is helpful to direct light on the bottom side, ensuring you get enough light for reading or working on a desk.
3. Arc Floor Lamp for Living Rooms
Arc lamps are large and tall, making them perfect for living rooms. Their big size ensures light spreads over a wide area besides making a statement in the living room.
The curved shape of an arc lamp adds character to a modern-themed house making the room brighter.
They are ideal for lighting over a couch, table, or corner chair because it curves towards where you want to illuminate.
How to Choose a Floor Lamp with a Lot of Light?
Choosing a floor lamp for a room is a challenging task that requires a balance between decor and functionality.
Below we tell you what to look for when selecting a floor lamp with a lot of light.
1. What are the standard brightness of a floor lamp to light up a dark space?
The brightness of a lamp varies depending on the use: task lighting, accent lighting, or ambient lighting.
The size of a room will also determine the brightness.
A lamp’s brightness is measured in lumens (total amount of visible light emitted by a bulb in a unit of time).
A standard floor lamp could produce a brightness of 800 lumens which is 60 W of an incandescent bulb or 12 LED Watts.
2. Which bulb is bright?
Halogen floor lamps are bright and great for task lighting or creating a relaxing mood because they draw attention to the spaces in the room where you’re relaxing instead of filling the whole room with bright light.
They produce a crisp radiant white light that renders colors accurately in a room bringing out the true colors of your decor and art paintings.
An LED floor lamp provides the brightest light. It’s suitable for task lighting because it produces a lot of light.
The light is white and cool, making it excellent for reading or doing a task for an extended period because it doesn’t heat. The bright light of LEDs reduces eye strain too.
3. What height of floor lamps give off bright light?
Most floor lamps measure between 58 – 64 inches in height.
To protect your eyes, the height should correspond to your eye level when seated or be slightly above the eye level.
A shorter or taller one might look awkward or interfere with the brightness you want to achieve. However, you can adjust the height depending on the size of your couch.
The height of your living room also determines the height of a floor lamp. While a short one will look out of place in a room with high ceilings, a taller one will radiate ambient light.
Your lighting needs: general lighting, accent, or ambient, are essential in choosing the correct height.
4. For bright light, is neck adjustability a must-have?
A floor lamp can give the most light whether its neck is adjustable or not.
Most traditional floor lamps do not have a pivoting feature for the neck. However, you can adjust the level of the light.
Adjusting the neck of a floor lamp depends on your needs for light use.
If you want a floor lamp for ambient lighting, then a non-adjustable one is perfect.
But, if you want a floor lamp that can serve different purposes, it’s best to choose one with an adjustable neck.
You can tilt the shade of the lamp of an adjustable floor lamp to face sideways, upwards, or downwards to provide the most light for reading or working.
What Is the Brightest Bulb for a Floor Lamp?
The brightest bulbs for floor lamps are LED bulbs.
LEDs provide a higher light output because they use a technology that directly converts the electric energy into a single color light.
All the power goes into producing light, unlike other bulbs which produce heat.
An LED bulb produces 70 to 100 lumens which are five times brighter than incandescent or halogen bulbs.
The more the lumens, the more the brightness.
1500 lumen, for instance, is equivalent to 100W of an incandescent bulb, but it translates to 25W for an LED bulb. They are not only bright but also energy-saving.
Tips on Bright Floor Lamp Selection
1. Number of lamp heads
Multiple numbers of lamp heads allow you to use more bulbs, creating more light in a room.
2. Type of shade
Playing with the shade’s material is a clever way of increasing brightness. A lighter fabric like silk or translucent shade allows more light to radiate your room.
3. Color of shade
White shades allow the most light to reach an entire room, unlike a dark one which concentrates light in one direction.
4. Adjustable height
A floor lamp that allows you to adjust the height and level of light is excellent for achieving light brightness.
5. Light control settings
Some floor lamps have light settings and remote control so you can dim the light or increase brightness at your convenience.
How to Make a Floor Lamp Brighter?
Increasing the brightness level or color change of the light to your desired brightness is a sure way.
You can adjust the height of the lamp to increase the brightness or turn the neck to face the direction where you want the most light.
Keep your shade simple for the most light. The more the details on the shade – like with a tiffany floor lamp, the less the brightness.
If your floor lamp is still dull after the above tip, it’s time to ditch your bulb for an LED bulb with more lumen.