Since 2009, we've built
Shades of Soho, our home lighting
business, around the idea of a bridal shop. Our talents are focused on helping an individual translate their hopes and dreams into lighting - the same way
people embody who they are with the details they choose for
their wedding. Customers come from far and wide with their lamps to our
store, sit down, show us swatches and pictures of their rooms, and we
dress their lamps with many lampshade options that include: shape, size, fabric
and trims. The client can either buy a shade off our shelf, or we can customize
anything that they would like and make it for them right in our
store. We do not charge extra for
custom creations, but the price is the same as if it was already made and sitting
on our shelves.
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The same principal applies to our signature
custom chandeliers, sconces and lamps. We cast our own metals and offer crystal choices and a full color
wheel of options for the finish of our product. At Shades of Soho you can get a base model, or we can design with you to create something one-of-a-kind. We
have plenty of styles that customers can choose from so that they don't have to
reinvent the wheel, but for someone who wants to add a little extra something,
having the option to be part of the process is actually very exciting.
Working with items of sentimental value
is probably one of the most rewarding parts of our day. Just freshening
up a favorite lamp passed down from Grandma with a new, stylish,
better fitting shade, or rewiring it to get the lamp in safe, working condition
again is something we take great pride in doing. Most manufacturers incorrectly shade a lamp just to save a dollar, but we will always do the job correctly. There
is nothing more satisfying to both the customer and the
Shades of Soho staff than when a customer brings in something old and neglected that we can
turn into functional, lighting art. Our most recent example is a changelier that a customer brought to us.It belonged to her great aunt, who was like a second mother. Her fiance insisted on throwing out "that piece of junk", but she wanted to save her great aunt's chandelier because it was one of the few things she remembered in her great aunt's house while growing up. After consulting with her on the many
options that we had to offer, we decided to take the chandelier apart, coated it in our
metallic root beer finish, rewired it, redesigned it and dressed it with a pleated
out-scallop drum shade. We took a sentimental piece and turned
it into a functioning, one-of-a kind piece of art. Hearing an
emotional, “You just gave me a piece of my aunt back and I can’t ever thank you
enough" was a huge bonus and just an example of the unique service we
provide.
Most people come into Shades of Soho and say they've been trying to find lampshades for months or years.
These individuals have gone to the typical lighting store or the big box discount store, searched
online, and have been overwhelmed by everything looking the same with nothing feeling quite right for a home. They finally buy
something online just to get the task out of the way. Most recently, a customer kept walking by our store window and looking
up at the chandeliers. She had fallen in
love with one from our selection, but purchased a different chandelier from another store instead. She felt
like she should just be able to live with her choice because the chandelier was
up already. In her head she kept telling herself, "It's just a
chandelier" but in her heart, she just couldn't reconcile paying good
money for something she didn't absolutely love. It nagged at this customer until she
finally came to Shades of Soho, stood under the chandelier she had fallen in love with, and just HAD to have it. She bought the item and even called us after it
was installed to express how much she loves getting up in the morning and
having her coffee under the light of that chandelier. She finally feels her
room is now complete and feels like home.
Our talented team is comprised of
husband and wife, Bryan Kule and Tara Diamond, as well as Bryan’s college
roommate and best friend Sam Picken.
