How I pick lighting

Most people pick their furniture first and think about lighting last, almost like it's an afterthought. But in my experience, lighting is actually the thing that decides whether a room feels alive or just looks nice in photos. You can have the most beautiful sofa in the world, and if the light hitting it is wrong, the whole room falls flat.

What changed the way I think about lighting was realizing it's not just about brightness. It's about shape, material, and how light moves through a space at different times of day. A fixture can be sculpture. It can be the one thing that gives a room its personality, the same way a great piece of art does.

So instead of grabbing the first pendant light that fits your budget, start paying attention to shape and material the same way you would with a chair or a table. Ask yourself if the fixture has a presence of its own, or if it just disappears into the ceiling. Look at how the light falls, not just where the fixture sits. A chandelier that branches out like a tree changes a room completely differently than one that hangs in a straight, simple line.

This is something I bring into almost every project. Lighting is never the last decision I make, it's one of the first, because it shapes how every other element in the room actually reads. Once you start seeing lighting this way, you can't really unsee it.

Here's what I typically go for:

• Apparatus studio, for pieces that read as jewelry for the room, brass and glass and stone put together in a way that feels architectural.
• In Common With, out of New York, for sculptural shapes that still feel warm, not cold or overly designed.
• Ladies & Gentlemen studio, out of Seattle, for fixtures that feel like they belong in a museum you'd actually want to spend time in.
• Lindsey Adelman Studio, if you want a chandelier that branches out and changes the whole scale of a room.
• Gantri, if you want something original without a bespoke price tag, since they work with independent designers and 3D print a lot of their pieces.