Decorating With Antiques: Set the Stage With Lighting

I majored in theater arts for my first two years of college. It’s a bit in my blood. My dad was in show business — mostly as a director and producer — and when I was a baby, Rock Hudson was my babysitter. Honest! He lived in the apartment next door to us, near Warner Brothers Studio.

Given that background, I’ve always believed interior decoration and design are largely about theater. That is, they’re not just about the nuts and bolts of utilitarian objects under a roof. Rather, they’re about creating a place in which to live out life’s drama — making a beautiful environment that evokes something soul-nourishing. And in decorating, as in theater, lighting is an often-underrated but vitally important element in the creation of that environment.

If you’re like me and you love to include antiques in the “set design” of your home, then antique lighting (which can be a bit of a challenge) is something you should definitely consider.

In talking about antique electric lighting, we’ll be using the term “antique” loosely. Remember, practical electric lightbulbs weren’t invented until 1879. So true antique lighting (over 100 years old) often consists of candle, oil and gas lights converted to electricity.

In this spacious entrance hall, an antique bronze and crystal chandelier really helps set the tone, complementing the other antique objects, like the lamp tables and pictures.

As with all overhead lighting, I always recommend that chandeliers be put on a dimmer. All the romance and mystery tends to go out of lighting — and especially antique lighting — when the bulbs are glaringly bright. When you dim them down to a soft glow, approximating candlelight, they seem to be just right.


I really love antique chandeliers, especially drippy, crystal-covered ones. They are like elegant diamond earrings on a beautiful woman, adding sparkle and drama. And I like to encourage folks to remember that their use doesn’t have to be limited to just dining rooms and entry halls. In this kitchen, for example, a very pretty Murano glass chandelier is teamed up with an ornate hutch to bring great interest and gentility to an otherwise very hard-edged, commercial-looking space. Really cool!




Of course, not all chandeliers have to be drippy and crystal-ly. This classic converted gas chandelier, with its pair of lacy glass shades (circa 1895), makes a graceful statement. It reminds me very much of one my wife and I had in our first house (vintage 1906) in the Wallingford district of Seattle. I think we dug it out of some old salvage place, and it was quite a process to get it in proper working order, but very worth the effort. A lighting fixture like this is a powerful tool in creating a certain kind of mood.


I also really like this three-light chandelier from around 1920. The black and gilt, combined with the creamy shades, produce a very handsome effect. I would use it in a study or library.


Have you ever heard of a girandole? It’s kind of like a chandelier designed to sit on a table, and it came into use in the middle of the 19th century. Many are still available with candles, but they also come with electric lights.

I’ve never owned a girandole but have always wanted one. They are beautiful at night on a side table or even a dining table when used with candles or very dim electric bulbs. As you can see here, where the girandole has been mixed very creatively with Asian furniture, they are really the world’s most elegant candlestick. Their prismatic crystals reflect light in a unique way, really establishing a romantic ambience. If you’ve ever seen the movie The Scarlet Pimpernel, you’ll know exactly what I mean.


Fine Pair of Gilt Wood Two Arm Girandole Sconce MirrorsA girandole can also refer to a mirror with candles attached. I really like this pair of girandole sconces. They would look beautiful flanking a picture over a fireplace or in a dining room over a buffet.


Speaking of sconces, they are an important and often-overlooked lighting device. This circa-1900 (probably French) classical double-armed sconce is a great example. I like to use them mostly for ambience in a hallway or perhaps unexpectedly among an arrangement of pictures. They’re also fun used with tiny silk shades that clip to the bulbs.


Of course, there is more to antique lighting than just ceiling fixtures and sconces. Oil lamps have been used since biblical times, and there are some really awesome late-Victorian oil lamps that evoke a Gone With the Wind feeling. This beautiful vintage Lady, Cherubs & Swans lamp from 19th Century Lighting is a stylish example. Although made a bit after the Civil War, it still creates that atmosphere and would be gorgeous in many a parlor, den or entry hall.


A game of bouillotte anyone? Bouillotte is an 18th-century French card game that involved gambling. This game gave rise to the bouillotte lamp, which had a shade that could be lowered as the candles burned down. It also had a cupped base that was used to hold gambling chips.

This is a classic antique lamp style that you have probably seen in movies or pictures, in a fantastically decorated, wood-paneled men’s study. Of course, it can be used in many other contexts, as seen here in this very chic bedroom. I love this lamp style and have used it myself in living rooms, in offices and even once in a bathroom.


Here a bouillotte lamp sits on a small buffet and works charmingly with a red tole chandelier in a breakfast area. Again, antique lighting plays an important role in staging a well-designed room intended to summon a bygone era.


Lamps That Didn’t Start Out as Lamps

Antique lighting can also come in the form of any antique object that lends itself to becoming a lamp. In this case old homemade ice cream churns have been artfully turned into table lamps. What a great sense of country charm they produce in this comfortably inviting farmhouse-style family room.







Here is an “antique” lamp I made myself. I used an actual antique Chinese ginger jar. Thanks to a little work, a little know-how and some lamp parts, my wife and I now have this lovely little thing in our living room. In concert with the other antiques in our home, it really helps establish the sense of a more elegant past that friends say they feel when they come to our place.


I really loved this beautiful antique santo that I bought in Seattle and thought it would make a great lamp, but it was beyond my amateur abilities. So I took it to a lamp store, which did a beautiful job for me. It’s my favorite lamp in the world.

When decorating, you really are the set designer of your own personal theater, which is your home. Whether you use actual antique lighting, well-executed reproductions or some antique item imaginatively repurposed into a lamp, don’t underestimate the power these useful objects have in creating a welcoming and hospitable ambience for you, your family and your friends.

More: How to Turn a Vase Into a Lamp

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