Bright ideas make a nice room noticeable

When decorating, consider the way a shade diffuses or focuses light.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
By now, if you have more than a passing interest in home-makeover shows and decor magazines, you know something about how color can change a room, how a few great throw pillows can work magic, and how artfully arranged accessories are essential.
But lampshades? They're an afterthought, at best.
"So many people tend to go off-white and bland with their shades," Philadelphia interior designer Barbara Eberlein says. "They don't understand how much of an impact lampshades make."
A great shade can wake up a space, says Margie Willis, co-owner of Ruth's Lamps & amp; Shades in Erdenheim, Pa.
"You can spend thousands on a room, and the first thing people see is what's lit."
Beautifully colored or patterned shades can give a room a warm, finished look, designers say, and the way a shade diffuses or focuses light can create drama.
A striking shape can turn even a pedestrian lamp into a sculptural object. Adding trim such as beads, fringe, ribbon or silk cord (known as soutache) is an easy way to raise the luxury factor.
Such shades are more expensive. Custom-made, handsewn, real silk versions can start at $260, without trim, for a 16-inch-diameter model. (They'll last for decades, though, unlike cheap, glued-together shades.)
But there are also plenty of high-end ready-made shades available at better lamp stores in the $50-to-$150 range -- in colors, patterns and styles that can bring that wow factor to any room.
Choose carefully
"One thing people do wrong is they find a shape they like and put it on all the lamps in the room," Eberlein says. "But a shade always needs to relate to the lamp it's on."
Standard shapes include drum, empire (a tapered drum), coolie (like the flattened hats associated with Asia), and bell.
On the more elaborate (and more expensive) end are squared bells, Maltese bells (with a scalloped, flower-like bottom edge), octagons, and pagodas, which mimic the roof shape seen in Asian architecture.
Becoming increasingly popular just now, thanks to the interest in midcentury-modern furnishings, is what's known as the retro drum -- a sleek, shortened version of the drum, which became massively oversized in the 1970s.
While there are some common pairings (ginger-jar lamps with coolie shades, candlestick lamps with an empire shape) the truth is that matching shade to lamp is more art than science, Eberlein says.
Proper size
Whatever shade you choose, pay attention to proportion.
"A lot of people make the mistake of having a lampshade that is too big or too small for the base," says Willis, who does both custom designs and stocks thousands of ready-made shades at her shop.
One rule of thumb is that a shade should be no smaller than one-third the height of the base.
Where a shade hits on a lamp is also important, she says. Shades should cover the hardware on the lamp, and just skim the top of the lamp base.
Key to getting the height correct is using the right harp, Willis says. These U-shaped pieces of metal, which fit into the sides of the bulb socket and hold up the shade on most lamps, come in increments from 61/2 inches to 12 inches. There are also "risers" that can raise a shade without changing the harp.
At her shop's workroom, she offered a lesson in the power of a lampshade to transform a run-of-the-mill lamp into something exceptional.
First, she put a pleated white coolie shade on an inexpensive black ceramic ginger-jar lamp. Safe. Boring and hardly worth a second glance.
But with a scarlet retro drum shade, that same lamp looked intriguingly modern, and vastly more interesting.
A stovepipe square shade in a narrow burgundy-and-gold stripe gave the lamp another sort of modern look. Add a silk tassel and it gained a 1930s aura. Garbed in a handmade celadon-green silk shade, set on a carved wooden base, draped with a silk tassel and topped by a carved jade finial, the $50 lamp looked like an heirloom.
Finials -- those decorative pieces that screw to the top of the harp and keep the shade in place -- are another key accessory.
Finials can match the lamp, or the shade, or can pick up another color in the room, Willis says. "They're like earrings, they finish off an outfit."
Material things
The right material for a shade depends on how the lamp will be used, Eberlein says: "Is it for reading? That's a different need than a general glow in a room."
For that, you'll need something like silk, which diffuses light. A paper shade, or a fabric shade with a hard back, usually made of polystyrene, will focus light.
With custom-made shades, even the lining color is a detail to be considered. Willis often uses gold fabric to line shades that are black or red.
Interior designer Louis Navarrete likes to have the custom lamps he orders for clients lined in a shade of pink -- a trick he learned from decorating legend Sister Parrish.
"The pink gives the light a warm cast, and makes people glow," he says.