Someone at the goodwill told me my lamp shade was too dark for reading and they were right

I bought this $4 brass lamp from a thrift store in Portland but the shade was this thick dark brown fabric. Swapped it for a plain white one at the dollar store for $1.50 and now I can actually see what I'm reading without straining. Has anyone else found a cheap fix that totally changed how a bargain bin item works?

2 comments

2 Comments

sullivan.riley14d ago

Seriously, I did almost the exact same thing with a floor lamp I found at a yard sale for like $3. It had this awful dark green glass shade that looked kinda cool but was totally useless for reading, you know? I ended up spray painting a cheap plastic shade from Walmart white, cost me maybe $2 total for the paint and shade (and I already had the paint). Now it's my favorite reading lamp because the light is so soft and even, no harsh shadows or anything. The difference a simple white shade makes is honestly wild, it's like a completely different lamp. Makes me wonder how many "bad" thrift store lamps are just suffering from ugly dark shades.

stone.simon14d ago

Yeah, I actually read something a while back about how light color temperature matters way more than people think for reading. The guy was saying that warm white shades around 2700K are better for winding down but if you actually need to focus, something closer to 4000K or 5000K works better. Swapping to a white shade does the same kind of thing, it just lets more of the actual bulb light through instead of filtering it brown. You're basically getting the full brightness you paid for.