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By Gregory Han and Joshua Lyon moving heads dj lighting
We’ve completed an additional round of testing and have two new picks: the CB2 Pavo Double Floor Lamp and the Nelson Cigar Lotus Floor Lamp.
A beautifully designed floor lamp can be the punctuation mark of a room’s decor, and the glow it gives off can transform a sad corner into the most inviting space in your home.
The only way to know if a lamp works as it should is to touch it, build it, turn it on and off, and live with it. And that’s exactly what we did with dozens of lamps for over a decade.
Our favorite lamps are as attractive as they are highly functional and durable, and we think most people will find an option that suits their taste.
Some floor lamps are great for reading, others wash the room with a warm glow, and still others do both.
Even if a lamp slips perfectly behind your couch, a hard-to-access foot switch could be a dealbreaker.
A good lamp stands up nice and straight, and it feels stable.
A lamp should brighten the look of the room and give it joy—even when it’s unlit.
This guide builds on the work of Gregory Han, a Los Angeles–based design-and-lifestyle writer, who wrote the original roundup. Joshua Lyon is a senior staff writer who covers furniture and lighting for Wirecutter’s home-decor team. He is the author of our guides to bedside lamps and tulip light shades. For this guide, they did the following:
We focused on a range of styles (including task, console, tripod, tree, arc, and rod lamps). And we jump-started our research with larger retailers of home decor, including (but not limited to) Crate & Barrel, CB2, Pottery Barn, World Market, IKEA, West Elm, Amazon, Room & Board, Wayfair, and Lamps Plus.
We also perused specialty online retailers, such as Rove Concepts, TRNK, Article, Apt2B, and Rejuvenation (plus a bottomless click hole of Pinterest boards). In addition to reading the small print regarding the warranty and returns, we scoured the hundreds of comments and reviews associated with each lamp we considered.
After this initial research, we brought the most attractive and promising floor lamps into our offices and homes for in-person testing. We evaluated how easy it was to install lamps, as well as to turn them on and off. We inspected the quality of the materials, including the cord and the switch, and the sturdiness of the construction. We also used the lamps as you would in your own home—relying on them for reading on the sofa and for creating ambience in a room.
Our current favorite floor lamps have the following qualities:
This striking two-in-one lamp includes a torch lamp for ambient lighting and a task lamp that can pivot to wherever you need it. The poles wiggle a little, though.
CB2’s Pavo Double Floor Lamp has two shades: one that angles downward and one that faces upward. The downward-facing lamp swivels and pivots, so it’s ideal for reading. The upward-facing shade provides indirect light for the rest of the room.
It has a striking silhouette. This multitasking lamp is part of CB2’s furnishings line by fashion designer–turned–home designer Brett Beldock, and it makes a statement. We love the white-shaded, brass-finished option with warm leather details, but it also comes in a moody matte-black version with a solid marble base.
The task lamp pivots. This can come in handy if, say, your partner is sprawled out on one couch and wants ambient lighting to watch TV, and you’re reading on a different couch and need more-focused lighting.
It’s made of sturdy materials. In the white version shown here, the poles and base are iron coated with a polished-brass finish. The shades are finished with a matte-white powder coating. (The black option is also constructed with iron, but the base is marble.) The leather accents (thin straps wrapped around the middle section of each pole) hold up over time—even in a dry climate, according to a long-term tester who has been using the lamp since 2022.
The lamps don’t operate independently. You must turn both lamps on or off—they don’t operate separately, and there are no dimming options, either.
The somewhat-wiggly poles may be off-putting to some. Although the heavy base prevents the lamp from tipping over, the task lamp’s maneuverability may feel unstable to users, particularly if they have kids or pets.
You’ll need to wipe it down frequently. The brass pole is prone to fingerprints. (The black version, which is matte, requires less maintenance.) Also, the upturned lamp gathers dust and flying bugs, but at least they’re hidden.
This authentic Bubble Lamp, conceived by modernist designer George Nelson, adds instant style and warmth to a room. However, be careful when using the foot switch (a not-so-strong plastic).
The Nelson Cigar Lotus Floor Lamp is the priciest lamp in our guide. But we love how it delights with handsome good looks by day and an ethereal glow by night.
It’s got design cred. This is the authentic Bubble Lamp, originally designed in 1952 by Herman Miller’s design director George Nelson. The shade looks like washi paper, but it is in fact made with steel wires covered in a translucent, plastic polymer. The result is a soft glow that looks ephemeral. The frame is steel, with brushed nickel-plated detailing.
You have options. We tested the medium (shown here), but it also comes in small (with a slightly squatter shade) and large (with an elongated shade). The Bubble Lamp collection also has several other shapes and lamp types.
It won’t wobble. The base is heavy and stable, so it keeps the lamp standing tall, despite the pencil-slim column.
It’s expensive. You can get a perfectly nice-looking, well-functioning lamp for much cheaper. So this isn’t a pick for anyone searching for value. It’s for those who like the specific look of this lamp and have the budget to splurge on it.
The foot switch is shockingly flimsy. The casing, made with plastic, is attached in-line to an equally generic-looking clear plastic cord. One of our paid testers remarked that stepping on the switch with too much force might cause it to crack.
If you want drama—and you have the space—we love this arc lamp. It’s less prone to tipping than other moderately priced arc lamps, and it provides a nice light for reading.
If you’re looking for a statement piece for a large, high-ceilinged room, arc lamps may be worth considering. They can be tricky to shop for, however, because a bad design can make it vulnerable to tipping over. When in doubt, go with the floor lamp that has the heavier foundation and superior, thicker-gauged arm. With that in mind, the Basque Arc Floor Lamp delivers. The look is directly inspired by the iconic Arco Floor Lamp, designed by Achille Castiglioni and his brother Pier Giacomo in 1962.
It’s impressively solid. Because of an arc lamp’s shape and large size, if it’s poorly made, it can feel unstable and unwieldy. But to our delight, the Basque’s dome light is counterbalanced by a genuine Carrara marble base, flattened into a small—yet still sufficiently heavy—circular foundation. Although this base is nowhere near the statement piece of the Arco’s rectangular, 143-pound slab of cut marble, it’s still a handsome detail carried over to keep the large lamp steady. The Basque did not excessively sway or wiggle when moved or adjusted; it also survived a basketball aimed at its base and bounced against its arm without issue.
It’s easy to put together. The Basque’s divergence from the original slab-base design also simplifies assembly. After this lamp was unpacked, it took less than five minutes to put it together—all without the need for extra help or swearing.
It’s not great for small spaces. Compared with the high-end Arco, the Basque has a smaller footprint. And it has an abbreviated, semicircular arch that accentuates scale without fully dominating a room, so the Basque is less of a statement piece than the Arco. But it’s still quite large, and rooms with low ceilings (under 8 to 10 feet) need not apply.
The light’s reach is limited compared with that of the Arco. While the Basque delivers light intimately and immediately overhead, its reach is more modestly proportioned, spanning a little over half the Arco’s original, nearly 7-foot curvature.
The Ranarp is the most versatile and affordable lamp we found. The cantilevered, adjustable-length arm points the light just where you need it, and the matte finish reduces glare.
The IKEA Ranarp works best stationed by a couch, an armchair, or a bedside—anywhere you’d like to cozy up to do specific tasks, such as reading, crafting, or performing an activity where distracting glare or shadows can hamper focus or strain the eyes.
It’s sturdy and user-friendly. This lamp proved more stable than other lamps we tested, and the cantilevered arm was easier to adjust. A hefty-weighted base kept the lamp stable in our tests, even when we bounced a basketball by it. Only an excessive karate chop to the highest section of the lamp would make the Ranarp lose its confident hold on the floor.
You can direct the light where you need it. The Ranarp was the only lamp we tested with two-joint adjustability (another task model from Target fooled us into believing that we could adjust its arm’s angle, but it was locked into place). This allowed us to dial in exactly where we wanted illumination. Other floor lamps offered only a general downward cast or a limited range of motion. Additionally, a locking dial lets you lengthen or shorten the arm attachment.
It’s kind of chic. We’d describe the Ranarp as “Swedish industrial”: a hint of vintage yet still modern. The lamp is somewhat reminiscent of the classic Anglepoise adjustable folding-arm lamp or the Luxo L-1 lamp. However, IKEA’s designers abandoned the spring-tension mechanisms of those 1930s predecessors for what we think is a more-elegant dial-hinge solution. A powder-coated matte finish, in white or black, minimizes reflective glare and pairs nicely with the handsome, gold-painted hardware. A striped-textile-covered power cord imparts a dash of style where most lamps settle for ho-hum black or white extension cords.
Its on/off button is far from appealing. For all of its otherwise exemplary detailing, the Ranarp’s tiny, chiclet-shaped on/off button feels insignificant, with slightly unpleasant, sharp raised edges we could feel with every press.
The power cord emerges from the lamp’s pole. Instead of coming out of the base of the lamp, the fabric cord is a bit more obvious, since it comes out near the bottom of the tube. Yet that’s more of an aesthetic preference.
This surprisingly sturdy console lamp offers nice ambient light. It looks similar to lamps that cost 10 times as much, and the tulip-style base should appeal to fans of mid-century design.
The Adesso Oslo Floor Lamp looks great floating amid seating areas or standing in a corner. Like most shaded lamps, it provides a nice glow anywhere you want ambient light, from the living room to the bedroom.
It keeps on standing. A breeze to assemble, the Oslo felt more substantial and less likely to tip over than other shaded floor lamps we tried, and it was easier to assemble. The lamp’s weighted, 12½-inch-diameter base is very stable, able to endure a significant nudge or flying basketball thrown at its center with aplomb—unlike the cheaply constructed and spindly IKEA Aläng, which wobbled at the slightest touch.
It appears more expensive than its price tag. The Oslo is a spitting image of the much-pricier Spun Floor Lamp, from Flos. It has the traditional profile of a classic floor lamp; a minimalist, all-white matte finish; and a spun, horizontal-striped paper shade—all of which make it look much more expensive than it is. The most distinctive feature is an inverted, tulip-style base, inspired by the works of Finnish American designer Eero Saarinen; this is a detail that mid-century devotees might find particularly delightful.
This lamp is versatile. “It’s just a simple, sturdy, nicely designed floor lamp,” said senior editor Kalee Thompson, who keeps several in her home, including in some bedrooms and an office.
The 60-inch height is nonadjustable. It’s best used as a complementary light source, flanking seating in lieu of a table lamp.
The cord looks cheap. If there’s any giveaway that this isn’t a designer lamp, it’s the cord. Clear and plasticky, it feels like an afterthought. At least it camouflages well with white walls.
If you have a dark corner where other lamps offer insufficient illumination or simply don’t fit, we recommend the Felix for its lightsaber-thin design and powerful, mood-setting glow.
May be out of stock
Understated and minimalist, the Adesso Felix LED Wall Washer lamp was our favorite among numerous rod-style models we tested. Designed to be aimed at a wall, it disappears into the background and brightens up a dark corner with an inviting ambient glow.
This lamp feels solid. It’s essentially a 65-inch-long, 1-inch-diameter tube with an antique-brass finish. Set on top of a black marble base (7½ inches high by 4½ inches wide), this lamp is practically impossible to tip over, short of enduring a full-on body collision.
You’ve got a choice of settings. This lamp features three brightness settings via a tap to the top of the rod—the light output is both warm and pleasing. (Of course, for many more options, consider a smart rod lamp, such as the Philips Hue Gradient Signe Floor Lamp, which we tested. We were put off by its plastic finishes and lack of a physical switch—particularly for its relatively expensive price—but the lamp does offer a lot of customization.)
It slips nicely into a small room. Set it up in a corner, and the lamp practically disappears—while giving off a warm glow and making the room seem bigger.
You’ll need another lamp. By nature of its single-rod design, the Felix isn’t intended as a primary light source within a room. Instead, it’s meant to add secondary ambient lighting—filling in the gaps where other lamps might not reach. When turned up to its brightest setting and paired with another primary overhead or task light, the Felix created great ambient light for reading or working on the computer.
It uses a non-replaceable integrated LED. That means once the bulb is done, so is the lamp. But, rest assured, the 30-watt LED bulb is rated for 50,000 hours of use—nearly 11½ years, if the light is kept on for 12 hours a day, and a little over 17 years, if it’s kept on for eight hours a day.1 To be sure, we’ll keep an eye on this as we conduct long-term tests. And we are looking into the feasibility of replacing a built-in LED, should a trip to the lamp-repair shop be necessary.
It’s fairly heavy. This can be annoying for a few reasons. Since it weighs around 14 pounds, this lamp is not easy to move around when you feel like redecorating.
We have opinions about the cord and switch. The clear, lightweight cord looks a bit cheap, especially when compared with the lamp’s otherwise higher-grade finishes. The touch switch is located at the top of the rod, so some might find it harder to access, though this could be easily solved with a plug-in smart outlet.
The right combination of lighting will affect how welcoming and comfortable a room feels, and it can improve general ambience while curtailing eye fatigue. Additionally, after nightfall, a lot of light reflecting off of walls will create the illusion of space, making small rooms seem larger. (In contrast, a single light source diminishes perceived space.) Below are the three main types of lighting. Layer them throughout your room to create nuance, mood, and purpose.
The best floor lamp for you will fit in your room, both physically and aesthetically. It should also illuminate in a way that complements the lighting you already have, so that the space feels welcoming and functional. This is admittedly a tall order, but there are plenty of lamps to choose from. To narrow your options, answer the following questions:
How large is your room and how high are the ceilings? If space is tight, we recommend a tree, rod, or swing-arm task lamp. Lamps with shades or a tripod-style base require more space, and they are best for average-size to large rooms, whereas only the largest rooms with high ceilings work with an arc lamp (a style that can dominate a small room). Before you purchase a lamp, always measure its height and circumference to compare it in context with the intended space. A floor lamp should not exceed 6 to 7 feet in an average room with 8- to 10-foot ceilings; taller lamps work well in spaces with especially high ceilings (above 10 feet), where vertical accents add drama.
Do you want to read or work beneath the light, or is the lamp primarily an ambient source? Task and arc floor lamps are best for delivering glare-free light from above, and they ideally have cantilever swing arms or adjustable shades. A tree floor lamp offers adjustable light, but its reach is inherently limited by the positioning of its multitiered shades. Lamps fitted with shades (which we refer to as console lamps, aka “traditional” or “shaded” lamps) diffuse light to a pleasant ambient glow around and overhead, but they aren’t the best for reading. A rod-style lamp won’t light up an entire room, but when it’s placed in a corner, it will deliver supplementary light that enhances every other light source. Consider your most common nighttime habits. If you knit or read often, a light delivered from overhead or from over the shoulder will work best. If you’re a Netflix binger, you’ll want a lamp that delivers a diffused, softer light without glare or without intruding on those “just one more episode” evenings.
Do you want the lamp to stand out, or would you prefer that it blend in with the rest of the room? Imagine how the floor lamp will look standing among existing furniture, wall colors, and other decorative features. Tree and task lamps tend to blend into smaller spaces. Tall, arched arc lamps or console lamps with shades draw attention. If you’re looking for a statement piece, keep in mind that you’ll often pay more for something that stands out from the crowd in size or style.
Do you plan to move the lamp around? The majority of floor lamps are light enough to pick up and move with just one arm. But arc lamps and some larger tripod models can be heavy and unwieldy once assembled. Remember to check the base and total weight before purchasing, to avoid being stuck with something heavier than you can comfortably and safely lift.
Sometimes inexpensive lamps—particularly those priced below $300—can look suspiciously similar, and that’s often because they are, in fact, the same (or only marginally different). Mass-market retailers source many of their items—especially furniture—from the same overseas manufacturers: They’ll purchase off-the-shelf, ready-to-ship designs (often marked as “available online only”), which they occasionally tweak before rebranding them as their own.
So even if you factor in design, you might find lamps from Target or IKEA that are nearly on a par with lamps from more-expensive, specialty home-furnishing retailers, such as West Elm and CB2. Based on Gregory’s observations while he was designing furniture and visiting factories abroad that serve mass-market retailers, it appears that the differences are primarily aesthetic, such as a different finish or detailing. Some retailers simply cater to those who are willing to pay a premium for trending designs.
On a related note, many affordable lamps (including a few in this guide) are simply inspired by costlier models created by celebrated designers. Consider, for example, the difference between the Flos Spun Light Floor Modern Lamp (about $2,600 at the time of publication) and the similarly shaped Adesso Oslo Floor Lamp (about $140 at the time of publication). Besides carrying a pedigree of “Designed by Sebastian Wrong” to brag about, the more-expensive model exhibits a higher degree of detailing (much of it subtle), superior construction with better materials, a heavier total weight, larger dimensions, and such extras as an integrated zero-to-100% intensity dimmer. All of this may justify the higher price, especially if you have a flexible budget. But if you just want a stylish-enough lamp that works well, the Adesso is obviously the better value.
We’ve tested dozens of lamps over the years. Here’s what we think about a few of the styles that are still widely available.
The budget-friendly Aaron Aged Brass 3-Light Floor Lamp is stable. However, its modest, 40-watt-output per lampshade ranks it at the lower end of all the lamps we tested. Plus, its mid-century–adjacent design looks and feels a little cheap.
The ADS360 Crane LED Floor Lamp is a task lamp that has a hard time filling the room with light. But it’s compact and easily adjustable, with a four-way LED touch dimmer that emits a pleasant light for reading.
We liked the solid metal construction, tip resistance, and ever-so-goth style of the Article Black Treo Metal Fabric Floor Lamp. You’ll need a large room, though, to keep its wide-legged stance, large-diameter shade, and all-black presence from dominating the space. Plus, it’s hard to move and is rated for only a modest 40-watt maximum output.
With the Brightech Emma LED Tripod Floor Lamp, you’ll have one less thing to purchase. It comes with its own 60-watt equivalent LED bulb and ships in an ingenious flat-pack design. But its wooden legs are so lightweight that the lamp teetered and moved across the floor when it was lightly bumped by a basketball.
The Brightech Jacob Floor Lamp is nearly identical to the aforementioned Aaron lamp. The Jacob differentiates itself with the inclusion of a full three-year warranty and three budget LED bulbs in the box—for $5 more.
The CB2 Big Dipper Arc Brushed-Nickel Floor Lamp’s insufficiently sized metal base doesn’t instill a great deal of confidence. Still, if you prefer an arc lamp topped with a shade rather than a dome, the Big Dipper is tall and bright (up to 150 watts), and it has a high tensile-arcing arm that doesn’t sway as dramatically as those of similar lamps we tried.
With its tightly pleated shade in rich colors, the Hay Matin floor lamp is certainly striking, but its steel frame felt flimsy and unstable. We liked the tabletop version, though, and we made it a pick in our bedside lamp guide—in the lamp’s smaller size, the base is easily stabilized with a small pile of books.
The Lepower Wood Tripod Floor Lamp was a previous pick, yet in a recent round of testing we noticed a significant decline in quality when we ordered a new version. The clips where the shade attaches broke easily, and the wooden legs looked sloppily stained and felt flimsy.
Our previous top pick, the Monique Tripod Floor Lamp (which has been renamed the Sarim), is easy to assemble, lightweight, and resistant to tipping over. It also has a smart cord-routing system, which hides the cord inside one of the legs to emerge from the bottom end. That said, its mosquito-thin legs—the narrowest legs of lamps we tested—look and feel flimsy. And we’ve continued to notice stock issues over the past year.
Noting the Norine 61" Tripod Floor Lamp’s thousands of positive reviews online, we had high hopes for it. But our test unit was marred by a poorly threaded connector, which prevented us from securing a tight fit between each leg section and the three-way switch assembly; this resulted in a lamp that looked as though it had sprained its ankle and would topple over at the hint of a push.
The Orren Ellis Tregenna 59.5" LED Floor Lamp is a supremely thin, nearly 60-inch-tall rod light that practically disappears from view when turned off. The lamp is marred only by an ungainly and cheap-quality dimmer box, which is a pain to adjust and looks particularly mismatched alongside the lamp’s otherwise-sleek modern-chrome design.
The SH Lighting 31171F-SG Adjustable Tripod Floor Lamp has an adjustable height and a sleek, metal pull-string control. And the power cord is directed through its center tubing, for a cleaner in-room presence. During testing, a nudge is what did it in. With its oversize drum and the low position of its three legs, this unsteady floor lamp could be tipped over by a child, a pet, or a happily inebriated party guest.
This article was edited by Joanne Chen and Daniela Gorny.
Gregory Han is a design, travel, and lifestyle writer, and the co-author of Creative Spaces: People, Homes, and Studios to Inspire. His work can be found at Design Milk, Dwell, Domino, Apartment Therapy, and Airbnb.
I’m a writer who covers home and decor, exploring everything from lights to Lego. My obsession with interiors comes from living in 27 houses and apartments throughout my life so far and being satisfied with the look of only two.
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