Well, big news for Casa Cassie, anyway. After despairing of ever finding a floor lamp that I liked and was in my price range, I've gone and bought one. My new lamp should make it home next weekend. The source was the late, great Conran Shop, which is closing its 59th street store and moving into ABC Carpet (a move that fills me with suspicion, but that's a different topic). So I trudged uptown, not really expecting to find anything worthy at the promised "75% off!" But I did. I bought a lamp, by a classic name, for 75% off. And it's a new lamp, not a floor model. This stuff never happens to me! Now I have to find a way to make the rest of my apartment worthy of this very stylish new addition.

But why the Ikea ad? Well, because I can't help but feel bad for my cheapo old lamp, which has been holding fort for at least ten years now.Arts and Crafts isn't really my style, but I will miss the warm glow of the glass shade. And the two bulbs cast more light than their usurper (which only has one bulb) will. But I will not miss the way the whole thing wobbled and clanged every time you turned it on and off.

On the whole, I'm pretty confident the new one will be "much better."