Lamps for small apartments in Nairobi: a two-lamp plan for a bedsitter or one-bedroom

Why the ceiling bulb makes a small room feel small

Light from one point in the middle of the ceiling falls straight down. The corners stay dim, the walls stay flat, and your eye reads the room as ending where the light fades. Move the light to the edges and the corners open up. The room does not get bigger. It looks bigger, which is the part you live in.

Lamp one: the corner you sit in

Wherever you spend the evening, the sofa end, the bed, the one chair by the window, put a lamp on the surface beside it. This is the lamp you switch on when you get home and the last one you switch off. It should be warm, dimmable and low enough that you are never looking straight into the bulb.

In a bedsitter this is usually the bedside, because the bed is also the sofa. In a one-bedroom it is the living room, and the bedroom can wait for lamp three.

Lamp two: the far corner

Now look at the corner furthest from lamp one. It is dark. Put a lamp there, on a shelf, a stool, the top of the fridge if that is what you have. It does not need to light anything in particular. Its whole job is to make the room feel like it continues past the sofa.

Once both are on, leave the ceiling light off. You will be surprised how rarely you miss it.

Picking lamps that suit tight spaces

• Go taller, not wider. Surfaces are the scarce resource in a small flat. A slim lamp that rises takes a coaster's worth of table and still lights the wall behind it.
• Pick a shade that glows all over. A lamp whose whole body lights up reads as a bigger, softer source than a bare bulb under a cap, and never leaves a harsh circle on the ceiling.
• One colour of light. Mixing a cool white ceiling bulb with warm lamps makes everything look slightly wrong. Keep the lamps warm and leave the ceiling off, or swap the ceiling bulb to warm too.
• A dimmer matters more here than anywhere. In a single room the lamp is your work light, your dinner light and your bedtime light. It needs a range.

Three that work in a small flat

All three ship with a warm dimmable LED and stand on a small footprint. Prices are on each page, and every order comes with free pickup in the CBD or flat KSh 400 delivery anywhere in Kenya.

• Kola

  A column with a spiral turn. The narrowest lamp we make and the easiest to fit on a crowded shelf or a bedside that already holds a phone and a glass of water.

• Flute

  A soft gourd on a slim tripod. The legs lift the glow above clutter and let the surface underneath stay usable.

• Jojo

  A coiled ribbon with an even glow and no hot spot. Good for the far corner, where you want presence more than brightness.

If you only buy one

Buy lamp one, the corner you sit in, and put it on the side of the room that faces the door. When you walk in, the light is already where your eye lands, and the room says welcome instead of switching on.

See the whole range ofbedside lamps in Kenya andtable lamps in Kenya, or readhow to choose a bedside lamp.