Terms of Enlightment

For the first column of his exclusive new series for VERANDA, designer MARKHAM ROBERTS bristles under the glare of modern lighting, calling for a return to softnessand simplicity-at home.

- MARKHAM ROBERTS

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A space that feels like someone just shut you into a tanning bed? Or perhaps like you're on an operating table being prepped for surgery? I'm not sure who started the trend of loading ceilings with high hats (those pervasive recessed can lights that show up everywhere and seem to be spreading like gremlins in a typhoon), but I blame that person for the hassle of not only having to rip them out of almost every renovation project I've ever encountered, but also for having to ask clients to spend their money to do just that.

I could have put it to much better use: buying a fantastically beautiful painting, for example, or really anything else that brings joy and holds value. This contagion of glaring overhead lighting sadly offers neither.

Whatever happened to soft, glowing lamps and pools of attractive light filling rooms?

I once de-renovated a charming old Victorian house that had been entirely molested at some point in the 1990s. It killed me to have to put back what we knew from old photographs had been ripped out: perfect old kitchen and pantry cabinets, pretty tiled bathrooms with giant tubs and washstands, and lovely old-fashioned lights with real character (all of which were the kind you have to spend a lot of effort and money to replace). We must have taken out at least a few dozen recessed lights in the living room ceiling alone. No wonder the previous owners moved under all that glare.