AJAR lighting ideas to transform winter evenings at home

However, home lighting is also one of those elements that can greatly influence the ambience and feel of a space for better or worse, often in ways which are not immediately perceptible. Who hasn’t felt slightly uncomfortable sitting in a dining room just to eventually realise that the culprits are those bright grids of overhead fixtures which shine a kind of light that makes everything look a bit too stark and severe? Not to mention those cases when people use tremendously uninviting and harsh white led lights in places such as bedrooms! Conversely, a well-placed dimmable floor lamp with a translucent shade and a warm light source can completely overhaul the ambience of a space, transforming what would be a mere living room into a snug nest where to shelter oneself on a rainy afternoon. What’s more, with the colder temperatures and shorter days that come with the onset of winter, cosiness becomes a top priority inside the household.

Thoughtfully placed home lighting can transform your home, and it should be considered an essential part of the interior decor rather than an afterthought or an additional accessory. Our curated catalogue of designer Spanish furniture has plenty of options in this department, from portable table lamps to high-end designer overhead pendants. Today we would like to show you a selection of pieces, while also talking about how they could be used inside the household. Let’s start with some of our favourite pendants from Santa & Cole.

Home Lighting: Using Pendants as Focal Points

Ceiling lighting fixtures have a long history of also serving as hanging centrepieces. Take a look at any old aristocratic or religious building and you will surely find a wide array of chandeliers, candelabra and other kinds of sculptural overhead pieces which, besides functional lighting, have traditionally also served to mark important spaces and establish focal points. Some chandeliers—both old and modern—have even become iconic pieces in themselves: the chandeliers in the Paris Opera House and in the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istambul are just two examples.

The pendants we want to show you are from the Barcelona-based brand Santa & Cole. Designed by the British designer Anthony Dickens, the Tèkio Horizontal pendant (Tèkio means ‘adaptation’ in Japanese) combines a handmade paper shader which takes elements from ancient artisanal techniques with modern Warm to Dim LED technology. Available in several lengths (from 67 to a sprawling 226 cm), as well as in a tasteful vertical version, the Tèkio is a testament to ideals of dignified simplicity in design. Antoni Arola’s Lámina 85 is another pendant which combines a handful of well-chosen elements and clean shapes with impressively eloquent results. The Lámina consists of a thin line of horizontal light with a thin curved metal sheet hovering above it and serving as a diffusor. If someone asked us for an example of a home lighting piece that displays the virtues of indirect reflected light, the Lámina would be a perfect choice.

Home Lighting: Using Lamps for Practical Purposes

Task lighting is the name given to the kind of home lighting that allows you to perform the various activities that take place in domestic settings. Due to their higher adaptability and versatility, self-standing lamps are often more suitable for task-oriented lighting. This is even more so the case with portable designer lamps. Let’s take a quick look at some of them.

Santa & Cole’s best-selling Cestita (Spanish for “small basket”) has established itself as a contemporary classic, and it is one of our favourite portable designer lamps. The original Cestita was conceived by design veteran Miguel Milà back in 1962 when he found an abandoned opal globe in front of a glass factory in his hometown Barcelona and, inspired by the traditional lanterns used on the Spanish coast, decided to build a designer lamp with it. It is an iconic design that remained largely unchanged for over 50 years. However, a cordless battery-powered version was added to the Cestita family in 2017—a logical step, since the original design already begged to be handheld. Thanks to its lightness (under 1.5kg) and its long-lasting battery life (up to 24hrs at the lowest intensity setting), the Cestita portable lamp is ideal for several activities both indoors as well as outdoors, from reading and dining to night strolls on the beach or countryside. The Cestita Alubat portable lamp is another version of the same design that switches the original wood for black aluminium, resulting in a more sleek and sturdy option than the original version.

Designed by Jordi Llopis for Almalight, the Tribeca is another great versatile and stylish portable designer lamp that you can move around the house to use for different activities. Sitting atop a black galvanised metal base sits a delicate spherical screen made from alabaster, a stone which has been traditionally used in Spain. The smooth translucent stone has white and greyish veins which make every lamp completely unique. Although it can be used in plenty of situations, the Tribeca is perfect as a soothing bedside lamp.

Using Lamps to Transform a Space

Carefully placed home lighting can completely overhaul the feel and ambience of domestic spaces. Achieving these kinds of effects with ambient lighting can require experimentation, but the rewards are hugely satisfying. For instance, a lonely armchair in a corner can be transformed into a veritable reading nest with the right floor lamp; a plain bar table can become the setting of a romantic dinner with the simple gesture of placing a portable lamp. There are many factors that come into play in these situations, but when it comes to lighting, two of the most crucial ones are the ability to adjust the intensity and direction of the light.

Floor lamps can be very useful to play around with, due to their versatility and their capacity to achieve the sort of indirect lighting effects that overhead fixtures can not. Santa & Cole has several very attractive floor lamps in their catalogue, the Dórica being one of them. Designed by Jordi Mirabell and Mariona Raventós, the Dórica’s fine cotton screen is inspired by the profile of the Greek column that bears the same name. More sculptural and elegant than the traditional paper screen lamp, the Dórica clearly stands out from the rest. The Tripode G5 lamp is on a similar frequency when it comes to combining the boldness of traditional shapes with modern sleekness. Its design consists of a base made from three thin metal tubes which contrast with its threaded ribbon shade. The latter is available in several different colours (natural, red, black, terracotta, mustard, and green), so you can also experiment with adding a hint of colour to its dimmable glow. The Tripode family is held in high esteem internationally, the original table lamp version has held a special place in the Santa & Cole catalogue for more than 25 years now.

We would also like to show you one portable table lamp that we believe has a lot to offer when it comes to ambience lighting. Santa & Cole’s Sylvestrina portable lamp combines highly practical functionality with a design that harkens back to pre-electricity forms of interior lighting. Designed in 1974 by Enric Sòria and Jordi Garcès to resemble traditional oil lamps, this new version removes the cables, pushing it even closer to its original intention. Aside from actual candlelight, we can hardly think of a better dinner table lighting setup.