A floor lamp with a black shade lights the armchair beneath it and nothing more. Before you pick the finish, see where the light escapes, through a gold or white lining, an LED ring, an uplighter bowl or a reading head.
Matt, satin or textured black, which stays cleanest?
Matt black dominates here, well ahead of satin and textured finishes. It reflects neither lamps nor window, but under low, raking light the dust shows up grey; a quick pass with a duster sorts it. Satin holds fingerprints on the stem, exactly where you adjust the head each evening. The gritty textured finish hides both. Stood against a dark wall, the lamp all but disappears. Against white, its line is drawn clearly, whether slender or sculptural.
Does a floor lamp with a black shade light the room?
No, it lights what it covers. Black fabric or metal lets nothing through, so the light leaves from the bottom, and from the top if the shade is open. A third of the selection has a shade, several of them lined in gold. A gold lining warms the light and pushes it towards the armchair; a white lining leaves it unchanged.
For the whole room, rely on an uplighter, which bounces 1,500 to 3,000 lumens off a pale ceiling, or on the rings and light columns that give 800 to 1,500 lumens of background light along a wall.
Which metals go with it?
Black rarely comes alone. Expect a chrome head, a brass ring or a stem in natural wood or ash. Take that second metal from what the room already has, table legs, door handles, a mirror frame; the black itself echoes black switches, sockets and window frames. Chrome casts cool reflections in a 2,700 K lounge. Brass warms them.
Integrated LED or bulb, and can it be dimmed?
Nearly one black floor lamp in three has integrated LED, among them jointed-arm readers, light rings and tubes of 1.45 to 1.80 m. The module can't be replaced, so check the hours claimed, typically 15,000 to 30,000. The rest take a standard bulb at 2,700 K, yours to supply unless the product page lists one, and dimmable if the lamp has a dimmer designed for LED.
For reading, the head goes slightly above and behind your shoulder when you sit, which the 1.30 to 1.50 m reading lamps here allow. They are covered under living room floor lamps, and our guide to task and reading lamps places them in relation to the chair. Black arcs, few in number here, have their own page, arc floor lamps; the bedroom corner is under bedroom floor lamps, and every finish under floor lamps.
To find out whether a model is dimmable or comes with its bulb, call +33 9 70 46 66 67, Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm UK time; free delivery in the UK and the European Union, 30 days to change your mind.
