Illumination

Scott Hardie | May 6, 2013
Is a particular color of lamp worth $50? This is really trivial, but I could use a sanity check.

A while ago, I put on my wish list a matching pair of black lamps that I wanted. One was given to me as a gift, but it's not bright enough to light my office by itself.

Today, I finally got around to ordering the other one, because it's pretty clear I'm never going to receive it as a gift. But this model is no longer manufactured, or for sale at any retailer. The best deal I could find online was $150 with shipping.

The same model of lamp is available in white instead of black, for $50.

So, I could pay $150 for a matching black lamp like I want, which seems like a crazy amount of money to pay for a lamp. Or I could pay a third of that cost to buy a white lamp for the other side of the room, even though the color mismatch would bother me, like wearing a white sock and a black sock. Or, I could buy two matching white lamps for $100, which brings me back to my original question: Is it worth $50 just to have the colors match? That seems crazy. That I'm even considering it makes me feel crazy.

I guess I could find a cheap pair of lamps at Walmart or Goodwill for more like $20-40 and try to be satisfied with them. Or, if this model of black lamp really is that rare, I could sell mine on eBay to fund a pair of replacements, but I'm skeptical that it would sell.

Bah. Thanks for any advice.

Steve West | May 6, 2013
Dude, that black/white combination is so yin/yang it's actually appealing. You should reconsider.

Lori Lancaster | May 12, 2013
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | June 2, 2013
Thank you both for the good advice! I should have thought of painting it. In the end, I found a black one on sale and used a gift card to reduce the price to $52.65 with free shipping. Lucky break. I would have preferred not to buy it now because we're trying to save money for a wedding in nine months, but the chances of this black lamp being available again at this price (or maybe at all) are slim, so I went ahead.