Good-looking furniture focuses home offices on "home".

Whether you operate a minicorporation from your bedroom or run the household from a command post in the kitchen, an organized place for deskwork is a necessity for today’s busy families. Often, you can carve out a home office spot in a spare room or the basement. But don’t overlook less likely places such as part of a bedroom or a large closet.

Finding good-looking furniture for your work spot is a snap. Manufacturers are making beautiful desks, chest-style horizontal file cabinets, work tables, computer-friendly storage pieces and modular shelf units, all designed to blend as easily into a home setting as an office.

Use glare-free surfaces for spreading out papers; a drafting table serves well for artwork. And don’t be stingy with bookcases. They can store supplies as well as reference materials.

If you’ll be sitting for extended periods, try out an ergonomic chair. It will give you good back support and make it easy to swivel from one work surface to another.

Adequate lighting is an absolute essential. Plan on a good desk lamp plus general lighting. Work with an electrician to make sure the circuitry can handle the added load of the computer and other electronic helpers.

Accent lamps brighten interiors with a statement

Form and function combine to create illuminated design.

Lamps have always done double duty. Certainly, they’re needed to cast the right light on reading, dressing, cooking, art and pathways, but they also make a design statement.

Lamp designs have generally followed the path forged by design trends and technology. In the 18th century, the opening of Far Eastern trade routes shaped the furniture and lamps chosen for formal rooms. These lamps burned a variety of oils, such as whale oil, and cast a warm glow through parchment, glass and thinly stretched hide shades. In the late 19th century, the first electric lamps were manufactured, allowing Victorian artisans to create ornate pedestals, urns, vases and other artistically inspired designs. The light they cast was brighter than their oil–burning predecessors, so translucent shades were no longer necessary. Shades crafted of stained–glass (such as those created by Tiffany), fabric, leaded glass and even metal came into use. During this century’s Arts and Crafts movement, designers forged lamps to complement the architectural lines of the period’s weighty furniture. And who can forget the lava lamp, that icon of the free-for-all ’60s?

Today, there is an incredible array of lamp designs available to accent the decor of any room. From cartoon characters to collectible statuary, it’s possible to combine form and function in one luminous design element. And, with the change of a shade or finial, you can change a lamp’s character with the seasons, changes in decor and even as it moves from one room to the next.

Use lamps to complement your furniture's architectural lines.

Lamps are available in a wide range of prices, from inexpensive to very expensive. Lower prices reflect the less costly materials used and ease of manufacture. At the upper end of the scale, lamps are generally more substantial, featuring superior materials, styling and technology. How do you tell the difference? Consider the brass lamp, one of the most popular styles. The less expensive versions are brass–finished, lightweight and pieced together in several sections. Finer brass lamps are solid brass, quite heavy and crafted in fewer sections. In nearly every style category, you’ll find versions at both ends of the scale: Crystal lamps are more expensive than glass lamps, molded iron lamps are not as expensive as forged iron lamps and the glass ginger–jar lamp will always be less costly than a porcelain Oriental lamp.

Iron and stone, wood and marble, wicker and brass— lamp manufacturers are exploring a wide range of materials for their latest introductions. As interior designers and home decorators create more lifestyle looks — rooms decorated around an interest or pastime — they’re choosing lamps that make a statement about someone’s personal preferences or complement the thematic concept of an interior.

Choose a lamp just for lighting? Only in the dark ages!