Apartment Decorating: Man Lamp

I blogged last week about my wonderful $49 Home Depot desk find for Mr. 3 and how we are trying to put together a home office for Mr. 3 to contain his business clutter.  Well, we also needed a lamp.  One of the joys of renting is that the buildings usually skimp on overhead lighting in everywhere but the kitchen, dining room, and entryway...and our apartment is no exception.  We've managed to use all of our lamps from our old apartment, as well as, two others that Mr. 3's cousins graciously gave us when they moved out of DC. Poor Mr. 3 has one small table lamp located near the door to his office and no other light besides the glow of his computer.  I wanted something mantastic-ly wonderful for him that would blend well with the desk style we bought from Home Depot.  To refresh, here is the desk:

Home Decorators Collection Kelman Writing Desk in Walnut
$49
Image Source: Home Depot

I didn't want to use up the valuable real estate on the top of his desk with another table lamp, so I hit up Target, Home Goods, and World Market to look for a floor lamp.  I briefly considered looking online at Overstock or Wayfair, but I have a tough time gauging the size of a lamp and how nice it looks online  (you can always spot a cheap lamp in person).  I absolutely hate how much lamps cost and think it's ridiculous to pay hundreds of dollars for a lamp...don't get me started on lamp shades, I tend to say bad words when I think about them.  My theory: if you are going to spend lots of money on fancy lighting put your moo-lah into a chandelier....they bring me far greater happiness than a lamp ever could.  Since I don't have the option of installing a chandelier in a rental, I'm back to lamps - I really don't think you should spend more than $50 on a table lamp and $150 on a floor lamp....even if they are really pretty like these:

HAND-CARVED CORINTHIAN COLUMN FLOOR LAMP
$1195
Image Source: Restoration Hardware

Abacus Floor Lamp - Luster
$399
Image Source: West Elm

ROYAL MARINE TRIPOD FLOOR LAMP ANTIQUE BRASS AND BROWN
$1395
Image Source: Restoration Hardware

That said, there was no way I was spending $150 on a floor lamp for Mr. 3's office or any of the prices listed above (see previous note about bad words).  After perusing the stores, here's what I found: Home Goods has tons of table lamps for reasonable prices from nice furniture companies like Broyhill, but its floor lamp selection is small.  There were maybe four floor lamps in the entire store for $129-$200 and I didn't like any of them.  World Market also has a good selection of table lamps (as well as overhead lighting suprisingly), but their floor lamps were above my price range.  However, they are definitely a good resource for well priced lampshades.  Target was by far the best in terms of selection and price for its floor lamps.  Almost all the lamps were priced at $100 or less and included a lampshade, but there were many choices in the $60-$80 range.  I picked this one out for Mr. 3:

Threshold Brushed Silver Linear Shaded Floor Lamp
$64.99
Image Source: Target

The style vaguely reminded me of the Restoration Hardware tripod I posted above and will go well with the desk and the other table lamp we already have in the room.  Although I can see Mr. 3 using this in whatever future home office set up we wind up with, I can also see us selling this on craigs list for $30 if we decide we don't want to use it in a few years.  I think it's plenty manly and modern without being too minimalist.  We will probably keep the lamp either right next to his desk or put it in the corner of the room, depending on how the cords run.

It took us about 15 minutes to put together and my favorite feature is that the cord runs through the metal leg instead of dangling down the center!  I hate ugly cords, so this was a definite design plus!  What do you think?  Anyone have any other cheap lighting sources we need to consult out there? Let us know in the comments section below.