You light up my life

Remember when the extension was being built, and we discovered that the architect had forgotten to add any lights to the drawings? Well we thought we'd get by with some well placed uplighters and lamps. Turns out that a large body of glass and the pitch darkness of night will swallow up light. We considered getting an oversized Anglepoise lamp to help matters when we're eating dinner - having the halogens on isn't the best solution, and neither is peering into dimly lit plates. We tried stategically placed candles (ok, but not ideal when the table is covered from end to end with food and booze), and finally agreed on that Livingetc featured design staple, the Arco floor light.



I've been to the Castiglioni studio in Milan so I have a huge appreciation for the designer and his influence. Sadly, I don't have £1,350 to buy a modern day reproduction of his iconic light. Obviously, if I did I would've definitely shelled out over at Heal's but as it happens I found the best homage to the original on eBay via Contemporary Furniture Clearance. You can bid from £159 or buy one on the spot for £169 - it arrived with us two working days after I paid (via courier) and an efficient chap called to say he'd left it on the door step. The marble base weighs 64kgs so no-one was going to nick it - we had to unpack it in order to stick a wooden pole through the iconic hole just to get it inside.



Once assembled the lamp looked right at home - these photos don't do it justice, but the height is perfect in our extension, and the quality of the finish is unbelievably convincing. I've seen terrible silver effect shades, bad arcs and shoddy "marble" in other copies but this, thankfully, was the best £159 we've spent in a while. It even came with handling gloves so you don't put finger prints all over the brushed aluminium when you assemble it.



The marble base is an excellent place to leave the laptop when we're not using it (I'm not keen on leaving the laptop on the table as the heat that thing puts out is intense) and as a happy coincidence, the shape and patterns of the lamp shade compliments our uplighters.



(Apologies for the cheesy title but I'm fond of word play and song lyrics. I should point out that this is in reference to the Debby Boone version and not Westlife/Whitney Houston songs of the same name.)