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Tulip Shades: Renter-Friendly Coverups for Boob Lights and Other Overhead Fixtures

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Green Design

Tulip Shades: Renter-Friendly Coverups for Boob Lights and Other Overhead Fixtures

September 16, 2024

When you stare up at your ceiling lights are you dismayed by what you see? The team behind Santa Barbara startup Tulip feels your pain. “It began with a boob light and a desperate need to cover it up,” says founder Lori Smyth, who made her first shade by suspending a pair of red box shorts over a dorm room’s glaring fixture. She’s since developed a growing line of good-looking cotton coverups for all sorts of ceiling-mounted landlord specials.

“We firmly believe that no one, regardless of financial position or handyman know-how, should have to settle for a home with bad overhead lighting,” she writes. Renters note: Tulip shades don’t require power tools and are leave-no-trace removable.

tulip&#8\2\17;s design can be mounted over any ceiling light that is \15 in 17
Above: Tulip’s design can be mounted over any ceiling light that is 15-inches or less in diameter. The shades hang by magnets from a ring that is mounted to the ceiling with removable tape. Shown here, a textbook boob light.
tulip&#8\2\17;s gem natural is \$\145, including a mounting kit. the shades 18
Above: Tulip’s Gem Natural is $145, including a mounting kit. The shades can easily be moved and reused making them ideal for modern nomads. And yes, they work on popcorn ceilings, too—with drywall screws.
tulip&#8\2\17;s shades are intended to soften glaring overhead lights while 19
Above: Tulip’s shades are intended to soften glaring overhead lights while upgrading them. They’re made in Nepal and Peru by, according to the website, “ethical cut-and-sew contractors with social missions to empower marginalized and at-risk people…Every textile is ethically sourced from environmentally-conscious suppliers.”
the gem surf shade, \$\145, is &#8\2\20;an ode to beach balls and beach umb 20
Above: The Gem Surf shade, $145, is “an ode to beach balls and beach umbrellas.” It also comes in scarlet.
the drum surf shade from tulip shades a removable overhead lighting coverup id 21
the lamp natural shade from tulip shades a removable overhead lighting coverup 22
Above left: The Drum Surf shade; $135. Above right: The Lamp shade in natural; $145.
tulip has just launched its first collaboration, a collection of four shades in 23
Above: Tulip has just launched its first collaboration, a collection of four shades in cotton by artist/creative director Xavier Donnelly, who designed Stissing House. This is the Gem Caledonia shade; $180. The hand-drawn pattern evokes Xavier’s grandmother’s garden in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.
lori, here with family and friends, shows off tulip&#8\2\17;s core collecti 24
Above: Lori, here with family and friends, shows off Tulip’s core collection.

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