How many lamps does a living room need, and where do they go?
Three: a pendant over the coffee table, a floor lamp behind the reading chair and a portable lamp on a shelf. Heights and distances in centimetres.
Short answer: Three, at three heights: a pendant over the coffee table for general light, a floor lamp just behind the reading chair's shoulder for task light, and a small portable lamp on a shelf or side table for low accent light. Each is switched separately, so the room can go from bright to quiet in steps.
One fitting in the middle of the ceiling lights the floor evenly, flattens faces and leaves the corners grey. Lamps at different heights fix that; a brighter bulb does not. Here is how we would place the PH 5 Pendant Lamp, the PH 80 Floor Lamp and the Panthella 250 Portable Lamp V2 in one room.
The three layers, and what each one has to do
Think of the layers by height. The top one lights the middle of the room and the people in it. The middle one lights a single task, usually a book. The bottom one is for late evening, when the other two are off or turned down.
| Layer | Lamp | Where | Light source | How you control it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General | PH 5 (Ø500 mm shade) | Centred over the coffee table | E27 LED 9–14 W, 1055–1521 lm, 2700–3000 K | Dimmable with a dimmable bulb |
| Task | PH 80 Floor (Ø550 mm, 1315 mm high) | Behind the reading chair's shoulder | E27 LED 8–10 W, about 1055 lm | Switch or dimmer on the cord, by version |
| Accent | Panthella 250 Portable (250 x 335 mm) | Shelf or side table, below eye level | Built-in LED, max 6 W | Steps of 10, 33 and full output; long press for off |
The pendant and the floor lamp land in a similar lumen range, so the floor lamp is not a weak extra: it can carry the room once the pendant is dimmed. The Panthella runs on its battery, which is why it gets the job that moves around.
Layer one: how high to hang the PH 5 over a coffee table
Over a dining table the PH 5 hangs 60–70 cm above the top. A coffee table is different: people sit lower, but they also stand up and walk around it. Our rule is to keep the 500 mm shade fully inside the table's outline, so nobody passes under its rim, and then set the lower edge around 150 cm from the floor.
Worked example for a 250 cm ceiling: 250 minus 150 leaves 100 cm from ceiling to the lower edge. Take away the 26.7 cm height of the shade and you need about 73 cm of cord below the canopy, well inside the 3 m supplied. In a room with a 280 cm ceiling the same lower edge needs about 103 cm. Either way, check the ceiling fixing can take 4.6 kg before you drill.
If the ceiling point is not above the coffee table, move the point or skip this layer; a pendant over empty floor reads as a mistake. Our piece on how high to hang a PH pendant over a dining table covers the dining version of the same sum.
Layer two: the floor lamp behind the chair, and when the AJ fits better
Stand the PH 80 just behind the shoulder of your reading chair, so light falls over the shoulder onto the book instead of into your eyes. With the top of the shade at 131.5 cm, it sits above the head of a seated reader, and the opal shades glow enough to soften the corner behind.
The number to measure is the shade, not the base. At Ø550 mm, the stem needs to stand at least 28 cm from any wall for the rim to clear it. Its 2.6 m cord decides how far it can be from a socket, and at 17.6–17.9 kg it is a lamp you place once, not one you shift each evening.
If you do not have 55 cm to spare beside the chair, the AJ Floor Lamp V3 is the narrower answer. It is 275 mm wide, 1300 mm high, weighs 7.3–8.3 kg and has a shade that tilts. The trade is light: 810 lm from the recommended bulb against roughly 1055 lm, aimed at the page rather than the whole corner. Choose the AJ for a tight gap between a sofa arm and a wall; choose the PH 80 when the reading corner should also glow.
Layer three: where the Panthella 250 goes, and how long it lasts
The low layer belongs on a shelf or side table, below seated eye level, lighting a surface and a bit of wall. The Panthella 250 needs a shelf at least 25 cm deep and 34 cm of clear height for its 335 mm. In a bookcase, that often means the top.
Plan its evenings around the battery. The only runtime stated is five hours at full output, so for a night on the sofa we would run it at 33 percent and recharge it during the day. Charging is by the supplied 1.5 m USB cable from an adapter of at least 1.5 A, sold separately.
Our pick, room by room
- A living room with a ceiling point above the coffee table: all three. Use the PH 5 dimmed low as background, the PH 80 for reading, the Panthella on the shelf for late evenings. Put 2700 K bulbs in both E27 lamps so the colours match.
- No ceiling point in the right place: skip the pendant. The PH 80's roughly 1055 lm puts it in the PH 5's range, so with the Panthella it can light a small living room alone.
- A narrow reading spot under 55 cm wide: AJ Floor instead of PH 80, with the shade tilted toward the wall when you are not reading.
- Buying one lamp first: the floor lamp. Nearly every living room already has a ceiling light, and the reading chair is the place where one lamp changes the most this winter.
For other pendants, floor and table lamps to fill the layers, browse the full lighting collection.
