After the purchase of a new home or when nearing the end of a remodeling project many of our customers are excited to shop for lighting and forget to come prepared. Selecting the proper lighting for a space requires several important factors that if thought out before hand can make browsing through our nearly 1,000 lights on display a less overwhelming experience. Of course matching the style and era of a light fixture to your home is top of the list in making a decision, but these other important factors will weigh heavily on the process of  making the perfect choice: Scale – The most...

Sometimes customers in our antique lighting shop ask me for fixtures in which they can use a very high amount of wattage. First off is that most vintage light fixtures aren’t designed from an aesthetic point of view to look good with excessively high amount of wattage – for instance, delicate gas shades begin to look “blown out” once you use more than 40 watts. But second is that if you rely on a single fixture for too much light it will create harsh, unflattering shadows. The better solution is to make sure that there is a balance of light in each room by using multiple...

When a light fixture is brought into our shop for restoration it is often disassembled, stripped and polished – but never lacquered. We, and our customers, prefer to let fixtures age naturally so the brass in time turns to an honest honey hue. But what if over time the fixture needs some cleaning? First, we never recommend the use of harsh solvents or cleaners on a vintage light except during a major restoration when necessary. So, for a light already installed the best solution we’ve found is to use the finest steel wool available in the hardware store. Its rated “oooo” –...

At PW Vintage Lighting we tend to call any two arm fixture with downward facing shades a “Billiard” fixture, but that doesn’t mean they are meant to be used exclusively for billiard tables. Billiard fixtures are a wonderful option for over kitchen work surfaces where crisp, direct light is preferred. They are also well suited for rectangular dining tables where the two arms will compliment their longer design and help provide more even illumination as compared to a single round fixture in the center. In both instances the two arm style will mimic the table/counter’s shape and...

Drop height is the distance from the ceiling to the bottom of the fixture. For over kitchen islands and work spaces I use a very simple method to figure this out – Just measure from the ceiling to the eyebrow height of the tallest person in the house! This way the lights are high enough so they won’t interphere with normal conversation, but still low enough that they remain visually “connected” to the work surface. A general recommended drop height for over tables is 30″ – 36″ and using the above guideline the fixtues end up within that range for an average...