Katrinas point of view: My search for the perfect bedroom reading lamp

I am a book worm, totally and completely and not at all like the earthworm above.

According to Mirriam-Webster, a book worm is
1. : a person who likes to read books and who spends a lot of time reading and studying
2. : a person unusually devoted to reading and study

I'm not the biggest and most prolific reader ever, but I still probably knock out 3 - 4 books a month.
I read, a lot, and most everywhere. The type of woman who carries a book, ( or a book on the kindle app on my smart phone ), everywhere I go. My nose is buried during my breaks at work, in waiting rooms at the doctors office, hair dressers, accountant, any spare moment really.

I read at home also. Mostly in the living room perched on the comfy couch next to the nice lamp below.

But to read in the sanctuary of my bedroom would be heaven. Why oh why on Earth would I not read in my warm confines on my bed? Because the lighting was very very insufficient.

Above you can see my bed. My room is small at approximately 9'5"x10'5". But it suits me and my full-sized bed just fine. On the left side of the bed, the door to the room swings in, and on the other side of the bed there is about 26" to the wall. You can't see this, but there is actually drawers under this bed ( great storage! ). The down side of the drawers is that it eliminates the possibility of having a night stand the could've held a table lamp.

Okay, well easy solution?
Wall mount lamp!

Across the room I have this nice floor lamp:

I bought this lamp at Kmart in 2011. It has a polished brass finish and a swing arm top. Originally this floor lamp lived on the right side of my bed. I moved it across the room as it provides the perfect TV watching light. The shade is Alvine Parla ( 15" ) from Ikea. The shade is also available in an 11" diameter also. I really like this shade. It looks like embroidery and goes well with my flowered duvet cover. A bonus is that the shade only costs $14.99.

Being a believer that everything should match, I had to have a wall mount lamp with a polished brass finish and a swing arm. Now that I knew what I wanted, it was time to shop. My budget was $40 - $70.

What's a busy book worm on a budget to do? Consult google!
I put in "wall mount swing arm lamp" into the search and then clicked "shopping".
I found many wall mount swing arm lamps that I liked. But they were all the WRONG finish and more than I want to spend.

Right now the hot finishes are:
Satin nickel, oil rubbed bronze, bronze, even chrome.
No polished brass? What too 80's?

I think not! My room is done in tans and pale pinks, and the metal finish I chose for this room was polished brass. I refused to change my mind and give up. Time to dig deeper.

First I checked out Kmart and Target. They didn't even carry wall mount swing arm lamps.

Next I checked Walmart. Side note: I'm not a fan of America's largest retailer. I think that they treat their employees terribly, so I generally avoid them.Walmart had a better selection of lamps. In fact I found the Kenroy Home Element Wall Swing Arm Lamp in Polished Brass on their website. The lamp was available for purchase on-line only from unbeatablesales.com for $90 with free shipping.

That lamp fit the bill, but $90 was a little steep. So I kept looking.

Next stop? Walmart's biggest on-line competitor Amazon. I started by putting the exact name of the above lamp into the Amazon search. Unfortunately, the best price for the lamp was $91.90 with free shipping. Still too much!
Next step was to insert "swing arm wall lamp polished brass" into the Amazon search. Two lamps came up in search, the Kenroy pictured above and this Kenroy pictured below.

This was a pretty nice lamp also, a Kenroy Home 30130PB Nathaniel Wall Swing Arm Lamp in polished brass. At $66.60 with free shipping it was a lot closer to the price I wanted to pay. This particular lamp I liked a little bit less than the other Kenroy though. I liked the plainer look of the other lamp. Though I was happy to find the Nathaniel Swing Arm lamp, it was definitely my 2nd choice.

My last resort for finding the lamp of my choice at the price I wanted to pay was eBay. I put the exact name, "kenroy home element wall swing lamp polished brass" into eBay search and then sorted my results low to high.

I came up with only 4 results. They were the Kenroy models pictured above, two of each by four different sellers. Details of search below.

1st choice lamp $73.80 + $10.00 shipping for a total of $83.80 or best offer with $10.00 shipping
1st choice lamp $90 with free shipping and best offer
2nd choice lamp $117 with free shipping
2nd choice lamp $147.59 with free shipping

I eliminated #3 and #4 off the bat because they were the 2nd choice lamp and also way way too expensive. I then went to #2 and made an offer of $75.00. Why did I skip #1? I didn't want to mess with postage costs.

Anyways, the seller counter offered with $79.00 free shipping and no sales tax. A smidge higher priced than I really hoped to pay, but I saved $11.00 over other retailers. So I'm happy with the deal. Moral of the story? If the listing offers 'best offer', don't be afraid to make an offer! The seller can always counter-offer as they did here. Get a discount if you can!

The icing on the cake will be the new Alvine Parla 11" lamp shade ( from Ikea ), that will go on this lamp. Will nicely coordinate with my floor lamp.

I am waiting for this lamp to be delivered, but I will post video of it's installation and pictures of the finished room once complete.

When looking for a bargain, utilize the web. It can yield tremendous cost savings in very little time.
I hope this article inspires you to hunt the web more effectively on your next shopping trip.

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Katrina's Point of View Vlog - a companion to this Blog