Lamp and light shades

sevenhills

Do we need lampshades? I have two lights in my living room, both with lampshades.
This means that the light is reduced. Just been walking around B+A and they have fancy bulbs that are meant to be bare. Are these bulbs LED and cost effective?

molerat

Many of these fancy LED bulbs are more for decoration and ambience rather than for lighting anything up.

Spoonie_Turtle

Take the shades off and see what you think.  You may or may not need them depending on where the lights are positioned. 

My bedroom light from the ceiling is bare (nothing fancy, just a bog standard LED) but my two lamps have the shades on because at eye level it was difficult to see anything else near or around the lamp without the light being diffused.

matelodave

Whether you have a lampshade or not depends whether you are happy to look at a lightbulb or prefer the light to be a bit diffused. 
Decorative bulbs, can be OK but again it depends on the brightness and light level you want - its a personal thing.

sevenhills

matelodave said:

Whether you have a lampshade or not depends whether you are happy to look at a lightbulb or prefer the light to be a bit diffused. 
Decorative bulbs, can be OK but again it depends on the brightness and light level you want - its a personal thing.

I guess that is what I am unsure about. Is the light diffused or is it blocked, so you need brighter lights.

dunstonh

We decorated one of our hallways over summer and it had multiple old fashioned light shades on the various lights.    The bulbs were 4w LEDs (Chinese cheapies on Amazon).     The replacement light fittings had no shades but we didnt like the yellow LED lines in the bulb.  So, I bought some 2w Phillips frosted LEDs and they are actually brighter than the 4w cheap ones they replaced.     

At the end of the day, the luminance you need will depend on your room. We cannot really tell you what will work in a room we cant see.  But I would recommend the Phillips 2w and 4w frosted bulbs (we got some 4w ones initially which were too bright and ended up using them to replace some older LED bulbs that were 10-11w).

70sbudgie

In some rooms I use lampshades as reflectors (the cone shaped ones with white insides) to direct the light downwards. In some rooms I have frosted glass to make the light more diffuse. In one room we have a shade with an orange inside to make the light look more fire-like. And some lights have no shades at all. 

In summary, light shades can have different purposes and it depends on your personal preference as to what suits you.