The evenings get darker and suddenly your home needs a few adjustments. Reading on the sofa means sitting at a particular angle, the corner beside the bookshelf disappears after five, and switching on the ceiling light rather spoils the idea of a quiet evening watching a film.
Before buying another lamp, try moving the ones you have. We tend to put them wherever there is a socket or a convenient table, which is understandable, but it does not always leave the light where we need it. Sit in your usual place, switch things on separately and see what is missing.
Start with your reading spot
If you like reading on the sofa, choose the light from there. With a book open in your lap, try placing a lamp beside and slightly behind your shoulder, then adjust it until the page is clearly lit without your head casting a shadow. Lean back, too. There is little point getting everything right for a position you will hold for about four minutes.
Recently recognised at the LIT Lighting Design Awards, NookLight by KABO & PYDO design studio & BenQ Corporation is a clever take on the traditional reading lamp, designed with sofa readers in mind. Inspired by dental lights, it directs light at an angle to illuminate a wider area without glare or distracting reflections. Its adjustable arm makes it easy to find the right position, whether you prefer sitting upright with a book or curling up in the corner of the sofa.
It also takes care of a few things you would otherwise have to adjust yourself. A built-in sensor responds to the surrounding light, while another detects when someone is sitting on the sofa and switches the lamp on or off accordingly. You can even save your preferred brightness, colour temperature and balance between upward and downward light, so your favourite settings are ready at the touch of a button.
The bespoke collection at Nammos Hotel in Mykonos gives the person using the lamp plenty of control. Designed by Georgios Anagnostakis for IFI lighting, it includes reading and desk lamps, a floor lamp and a wall sconce, all built around a cylindrical fluted-glass core with polished brass blades curving around it.
Those blades rotate, changing the amount of light released and its direction, while the glass diffuses the light to reduce glare. The fittings use a warm 2700K LED source throughout the family.
The collection takes its references from ships’ oil lamps and the way lighthouse optics divide light into sectors, following the hotel’s broader interest in Italian naval design of the 1950s and 1960s. It received an Honourable Mention at the LIT Lighting Design Awards.
For a living room, that ability to turn the light towards a book is useful when someone else is trying to watch television beside you. When choosing your own lamp, check how far the shade moves and whether the controls are within reach once you are comfortably seated.
Let the lamps share the work
A ceiling light is useful when you want to see the whole room, but you probably do not need that much light for every evening at home. A lamp beside the sofa, with another further away on a cabinet, lets you change the setting without leaving half the room in darkness.
Linea Light Group’s autumn selection includes Sinfonia, Perla and Camping, with designs for different positions around the home. Sinfonia offers particularly good scope for combining fittings: the family includes pendant, ceiling, wall and table versions, in white or black painted aluminium, chrome and brushed gold. Its diffusers come in satin or partially sandblasted clear PMMA.
You could use a table version near the seating and carry the same finish into a pendant elsewhere, without expecting both to do the same. YOu could also leave some space between the pools of light, rather than trying to make every part of the room equally bright.
Camping is a smaller option from the autumn selection. The white 9650 model gives diffused light with a listed output of 140 lumens, so consider it for a gentle glow on a side table and check separately whether it provides enough light for a book.
Give the darker corner a little attention
Bloomora, designed by Chloe Liew for ELTO Made, could almost pass for a cluster of plants at first glance. Dried reeds stand among fine carbon fibre rods and metal components, with light woven through the arrangement.
The modular design stands 1,450mm tall and can be used as a single element or grouped into clusters of 17 or 31. As someone approaches, the light becomes brighter, then softens as they move away. Bloomora won in Designer & Custom Lighting at the 2026 SIT Furniture Design Awards.
It’s easy to imagine it beside an armchair or in a corner where a conventional floor lamp would feel a little predictable. The reeds give it something to offer during the day, too, when the light itself is less noticeable.
Once everything is in place, spend an evening using the room before deciding you are finished. A reflection in the television or a bulb visible from the armchair is much easier to notice when you are sitting there.
A lamp can look wonderful in a photograph but living with it involves rather more sitting down, reaching over and wondering why the switch is there.
