The Antique Piece You Love Is Actually Ruining Your Home's Luxe Vibe

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While lighting is not always at the forefront of home design when you are outfitting a space with updated paint colors and furniture, it's important both for aesthetics and function. After all, lighting, typically sets the mood and the unique style of any room. While your love of vintage and antiques may be what makes your home distinctive, some lighting fixtures may fall prey to the paradox of being old enough to qualify as vintage, but feel outdated or unstylish in the modern age. As a result, these now-retro fixtures may look like an oversight or accident rather than an intentional design choice. With a few adjustments, you can combat outdated fixtures and bring your lighting into the modern age, even if you will want to reflect the charms of the past.

The key is avoiding certain dated looks from the past that aren't particularly attractive in any age. Great examples include unsightly brass chandeliers and flame-bulb sconces, the ubiquitous dome fixtures or "boob lights" that plague many mid-20th century homes, and clunky, all-white 1980s track lighting. There are ways to remedy each of these, like adopting a more layered approach to lighting overall, as well as switching out or transforming existing outdated fixtures to update them while still retaining some of their vintage charm.

The goal of a stylish and well-wrought lighting scheme is layering different kinds of lighting fulfilling both functionality and aesthetics. This can mean task lighting in the form of overhead or recessed lights, accent lamps, and small fixtures to draw the eye to particular features, like to highlight a corner plant or light up wall art with an inexpensive hack. Multiple lamps or varied fixtures can often be a better option than uniformity. You can also incorporate specialty lighting like lanterns, string lights, candles, illuminated signs, and other lit accents that create a cozy glow. Dimmer switches can go a long way toward adapting otherwise brash lighting to your needs.

If you're stuck with outdated fixtures like those mentioned above, there are ways to modify them without the expense or wiring needed to replace them entirely. Update an ugly brass chandelier by painting the brass a rich matte black (no, matte black is not going out of style any time soon). Replace the bulbs with more updated globes or shades. Transform a dreaded flush-mount dome light by replacing it with a more modern-looking enclosure that doesn't involve complicated re-wiring. This is also a renter-friendly DIY, or replaces a dingy or damaged globe with a similar style. To decorate with sconces, bring them into the new century by adding updated shades or replacing their light source with modern LED or decorative bulbs you can get from Amazon like this pineapple-shaped bulb or this diamond-shaped firework bulb. For outdated track lights, replacing existing lights with new canisters can be a great way to make them sleeker and more stylish.