Jackson Heights Life

Although I have been known to complain about this in the past, I have to say that I like the look of the living room without an overhead light fixture.  Over the years, I've used a floor lamp with a tilting head that provided a good amount of lighting to the area, and now I have two table lamps.  The table lamps provide sufficient lighting for a cozy feeling.  What really helps with the lighting issue though is that my living room is surrounded by a foyer and dining area that do have ceiling fixtures.

I've seen a few apartments where people have installed track or recessed lighting.  I've also seen where people have just installed a strong hook with accompanying chain link on their ceiling and hung a lamp from that.  I don't like that look because the electrical wire is threaded through the chain and then brought down along the wall making the wire visible.

This is how living rooms were done at the time, localized lighting was the vogue. That's not only in JH but in many early 20th century buildings.

If you're up for a larger project, you can get an electrician to wire for an overhead light. It will be a couple of hundred dollars or more, and then you're going to have to repaint, etc. Alternatively, you can get a plug-in overhead lamp but as Chuckster said, it is kinda ugly. A friend of mine installed wall lights (sconces and such) around the sitting areas because it gave her a more finished look. My issue with that is that you can't really change the space very much.

I personally use my original living room as a study and have 4 table/floor lamps that give pretty good light.