Lighting furniture

Furniture lightings is an art form. It requires sensitivity to the uniqueness of an individual piece of free standing furniture and a willingness to do whatever is necessary to customize display lighting fixtures to the dimensions and aesthetic of the furniture itself. Altering the furniture to fit the lighting defeats the entire purpose of luxury display lighting, and falls far short of the luminance requirements needed to bring out the rich textures and colors in many hardwood pieces. Furniture lighting fixtures must be custom-manufactured to fit the shelves, vertical styles, or interior doors of a free standing piece. They must also be concealed as much possible in order to produce the illusion of sourceless lights. This added sense of mystique contributes to a sense of timelessness and elegance apropos to antique and reproduction furniture and brings added emphasis to the specialcontents typically displayed therein.

Phantom linear strip light are ideal for this form of fine furniture lightings. Becaus we manufacture only custom pieces, it is possible for us to custom cut a linear strip light to the precise interior dimensions of an armoire, free standing bookshelf, breakfront, corner cabinet, bibliothèque, or vitrine. This has to be done on a case by case basis, which is why we never advertise ourselves as a “furniturelight” company in the stereotypical sense of the term. We are more like the luminaire equivalent of a furniture builder—creating space out of something that does not consume space, light and bringing the full value of the furniture’s aesthetic to the forefront of the viewer’s attention.

Phantom agents assess the dimensions of a free standing antique or reproduction piece and determine if a horizontally mounted or vertically mounted fixture is needed. They determine necessary length of the furniture lighting strip, and then place an order with the low voltage light manufacturing team. When the lighting strips arrive, they are hard-wired to a vertical or horizontal surface within the cabinet or case. The surfaces to which these strip light are mounted vary widely depending on the type of furniture we are lighting. In free standing bookshelves, for example, we typically mount our strip lights to the bottom front of the shelf in order to cast the light slightly backward and onto hardbacks on display.

In cabinets, we also position horizontal strip light under the top header to illuminate contents on top shelves. Corner cabinets can be lit with vertical strips that are concealed along the interior vertical style of the display. However, many antique cabinets and antique reproductions lack vertical style, and feature only a set of glass-paned doors that open outward. When lighting these cases, we will either mount vertical strip lights to the rear interior of the door, or we mount them along the rear wall along the interiorcorner. While the strip lights may be momentarily visible to someone standing right in front of the cabinet when they open the door, the sheik, low profile design of Phantom’s furniture lighting strip provides an presentable aesthetic compliment to interior contents and a return to apparently “sourceless” lighting once the doors are closed.