Nordic Soul: Hallway Lighting - The Balance Between Esthetics and Practicality

Having had our hallway and staircase up two floors redecorated it's time to focus on the lighting. We need a ceiling light for the hallway and the 1st floor landing. The 2nd floor has recessed spotlights, so we don't have to think about it - and a good thing it is too, as the ceiling up there is really high and inaccessible.

I'm wondering whether I should try to find a light that will suit both the hallway and the upstairs landing, but the two areas have quite different needs, so I'm not sure it would be the best solution. The ground floor of our house has a slightly lower ceiling than upstairs, and the hallway light hangs at the bottom of the stairs, so I'm dithering between a pendant light and a flush ceiling light. From a practical point of view the latter would probably work rather well, since the ceiling fixture is positioned more or less at the bottom of the stairs and a pendant lamp feels as if it hangs right in front of you as you come down the stairs. We also have a glass-panelled door leading in to the sitting room to the side of the stairs and the brightness of the light shining through the door is a bit unnerving when you are sitting there in cosy mood lighting. However, it is not easy to find an attractive ceiling light, there seems to be a very narrow selection available - mostly an inverted glass dome set in a rim of chrome or other metal. Jim Lawrence, the Suffolk firm, makes beautiful lamps and I know from experience that the quality and service is excellent. But I don't think we want to go as traditional as these...

Left to right: Jim Lawrence 'Tavistock', 'Gladstone' and 'Grosvenor'

From an esthetic point of view there is lots to chose from. I am quite taken with a style of retro pendant light where the lightshade is transparent glass, with an old-fashioned flex and a brass or bronze rose. These look beautiful with a filament bulb showing through the glass. However, two of my family members have trouble with their eyesight and therefore find naked lightbulbs very uncomfortable to the eye. I wouldn't want them to have to shade their eyes when they come to visit. And again, there is that glass panelled door into the sitting room - this kind of lighting would probably be quite unnerving viewed from the sofa...

The middle road, and easier to find, would be to opt for a semi-translucent or opaque lightshade on a pendant light. Porcelain, frosted glass or metal.