Our Beautiful Over-Sized Jim Lawrence Lampshade

Speaking of stunning lighting, let me take you up into our very own Master bedroom and share with you, as promised, our gorgeous new shade-y dealings. Jim Lawrence have recently launched a Lampshade Builder, allowing you to create your very own bespoke shade. 

There are literally thousands upon thousands of options to choose from but it's all done through a questionnaire process so you never feel overwhelmed by the gazillions of options available (remember those pop-type quizzes in magazines? Filling mine in felt a bit like that.) 

On the Jim Lawrence website, it says this:

"Our Lampshade Builder allows you to choose from 20 styles, 100 sizes and over 200 fabrics to create a stunning and unique shade. It takes a few simple steps to build your perfect shade online. Our talented seamstresses will then create it in our Suffolk workshop and it will be delivered beautifully packaged within 2 weeks."

Sounds good, huh? But how does the reality match up?

What we need is someone to undercover and find out....and that someone was me!

So, backtracking to the start. I knew roughly what I had in mind...a stunning, large open shade for our bedroom but I wasn't sure of the details. And this is where the Jim Lawrence team really come into their own. They are stunningly helpful; sending out free samples promptly, answering every question that I could think of to throw at them and generally being very lovely indeed.

Jim Lawrence claimed that I could tweak the smallest of details so, with you in mind, I tried them out...I rather pickily asked for the light fitting to be lowered to 5cm from the top of the shade and, abracadabra, they've been able to make it just so!

When the shade arrived (and, yes, within the promised two weeks...impressive with the run up to Christmas), it was utterly perfect and beautifully put together. 

I chose their French Drum style, which, at first glance, appears to be cylindrical but actually has a slightly larger circumference at the bottom than the top, adding further interest.

This shade has a 55cm circumference which is large enough to look stunning but not so large that it dominates that room.

The fabric is Jim Lawrence's Pastorale Toile De Jouy in grey, which complements the Farrow and Ball Light Blue walls in a very pleasing fashion undeed (and that comes from someone who is a complete colour-pedant!). 

One of the touches I'm most pleased with is the diffuser. It softens the glare of the bulb and stops me from being able to see the rather ugly inner workings of the light bulb fitting.

Yes, I don't know what magic it is that they weave up there at Jim Lawrence but I'm pretty darn impressed.

And now....back to Dining Rooms!