The Edison look is easy to want and surprisingly easy to get wrong. You find a photo of a dining room with a row of warm filament bulbs hanging over the table, you order bulbs that look like the ones in the picture, and they arrive with the wrong base, or they are too bright, or they are glass and you have just hung them over a stone floor.

Galleries show you the room. This guide tells you what to actually buy for it, room by room.

Two numbers decide everything

Every filament bulb carries two codes. The first is the shape, the second is the base that has to match your socket.

• Shape is the look. ST64 is the tall teardrop people usually picture when they say "Edison." S14 is the smaller straight-sided sign bulb used on patio strings and the one we stock most deeply. G40 and G50 are round globes, 40 mm and 50 mm across. CA or candelabra is the tapered flame shape for chandeliers.
• Base is the requirement. E26 is the standard socket in a table lamp or pendant cord. E12 is the small candelabra socket in chandeliers and most decorative fixtures.

Shape is a preference. Base is not. A bulb with the wrong base will not thread in at all. If you are unsure which socket you have, our light bulb base size guide walks through measuring it in about five seconds.

One thing worth knowing before you buy

Traditional Edison bulbs are clear glass with a genuine glowing wire inside. They look wonderful and they break, and they run hot and burn through electricity doing it.

Everything below is shatterproof LED filament instead. The filament is visible and the light is the same warm amber, but the envelope is a tough polymer rather than glass, and a 2-watt LED replaces a 40-watt incandescent. That matters most exactly where people want this look: over dining tables, on patios, in rooms with children and hard floors.

Our filament range is shatterproof LED throughout. If you have your heart set on genuine glass incandescent, we are not the right shop for it today.

Over the dining table

The single most requested Edison setup. A cord dropped from the ceiling, one bulb, hung low enough to sit just above eye level when seated.

You need a pendant cord with an E26 socket and a bulb with enough presence to read as a deliberate object rather than a bare bulb. The jute rope kit below is the shortest route, because the cord, the switch and the bulbs arrive together and matched.

• 15 FT Jute Rope Pendant Light, bulbs included, $22.38. Cord, switch and filament bulbs in one box.
• Single Socket Black Pendant Cord, 15 FT, 2-pack, $26.62. UL listed, with a switch. Pair over a long table or an island.
• Warm White LED Filament S14, E26, $2.68 each. The bulb to put in it.

Hang a single pendant roughly 30 to 36 inches above the tabletop. Two or three in a row want about 24 to 30 inches between them.

In an existing chandelier

The cheapest room change in this entire guide. Most chandeliers and wall sconces take E12 candelabra bulbs, and most of them shipped with frosted white ones. Swapping those for visible-filament bulbs changes the character of the fixture completely for a few dollars, with no wiring and no ladder beyond the one you already need.

• LED Filament Candelabra, E12, dimmable, $1.43 each. The direct swap for a standard chandelier bulb.

Count your sockets before ordering, and buy one spare.

On a porch, patio or deck

Strung overhead, the bulbs are doing the decorating. Here the shatterproof point stops being a nicety: these hang outdoors, in wind, above furniture and people.

S14 on an E26 commercial string is the standard build. Warm white reads as firelight and is what nearly everyone means by the Edison look outdoors.

• Warm White 0.8W LED S14, E26, shatterproof, $1.90 each.
• Same bulb, 10-pack, $19.00.
• Warm White LED Filament S14, 10-pack, $26.80, if you want the filament visible rather than a frosted glow.

Buy spares in the same order. Replacing one bulb from a different batch two years later rarely matches.

Kitchens, bathrooms and small fixtures

Round globes suit the places where a bulb sits close to a mirror, a shelf or a low ceiling, because the shape throws light evenly instead of casting the hard shadow a long bulb makes at close range.

G40 is the smaller globe at 40 mm, G50 the 50 mm version. Both here are E12 candelabra base.

• LED Filament G50 Globe, E12, dimmable, $1.62 each.
• LED Filament G40 Globe, E12, dimmable, $1.56 each.

Warm white or cool white

For this look the answer is warm white almost every time. Warm is the amber, candle-colored light that makes filament bulbs worth looking at. Cool white is cleaner and whiter, and it turns a vintage-looking bulb into a slightly odd modern one.

The exception is a workspace. If the fixture is over a desk, a garage bench or a kitchen prep counter where you need to see clearly, cool white filament S14 at $2.68 gives you the filament look with usable working light.

A dimmer does more than the bulb does

Every filament bulb listed here is dimmable, and this is the step most people skip. Filament bulbs at full brightness look like bare bulbs. The same bulbs at sixty percent look like the photograph you saved. If you are running a pendant or a chandelier on a wall switch, a dimmer is the cheapest upgrade available to you and it does more for the result than trading up bulbs.

Prices and availability shown are current as of September 2026. Check the product page for today's price and stock.

Where to start

If you are changing one room, change the fixture you look at most. A dining pendant or a chandelier swap is visible from the moment you walk in. String lights change how a patio feels but only after dark.

Browse the full range of Edison and vintage filament bulbs, or shop by socket: E26 standard and E12 candelabra. Still not sure which base you have? Start with the base size guide.

Or ask us. We have been selling lanterns and lights since 2002 and we would rather spend two minutes getting you the right bulb than have you order the wrong one.