Baby Proofing Dilemma

Our house features a long living room — so long, in fact, that we actually made it into both a living room and dining room, divided visually by furniture arrangement, rugs and lighting.

But now we’re running into an unforeseen babyproofing dilemma. It looks like this:

This floor lamp has been with me since my college days (Yes, I know it’s time to cowboy up and get real live adult furniture), and it’s 1) precariously top heavy and 2) the glass shade makes a very satisfying clinky-clink sound when you’re a ten-month old adrenaline junkie hanging on to the pole and shaking it with your preternaturally strong little baby arms.

The clinky-clink sound scares the crap out of your mommy, by the way, Q.

But what to do? We NEED a light in that area of the room, since the only other lights are the interior lights of the china cabinet near the dining table, and the “mood lights” of the gorgeous antique deco amber mica sconces on either side of the fireplace (which is immediately opposite — i.e., I was standing in the fireplace when I took this picture) that were literally the very first piece of furniture we ever bought for our house. Neither of which work as “reading” lights, and that spot is definitely the reading couch.

Sailor Boy’s suggestion — tying the pole to the banister spindles — was nixed by me, both because of its aesthetic ickiness and because I don’t think that would preclude Q’s mission of making sure the light is earthquake-ready.

She looks so sweet and innocent when unconscious. Do not be fooled.

I considered a wall sconce, but the problem is, we don’t have much wall. The banister/staircase takes up a lot of space, and most of the wall over the couch is occupied by this:

You can’t really tell from this picture, but this painting is four feet long.

I considered replacing the floor lamp with a sturdy (yet small) side table topped by a table lamp, but that seems like it might crowd the open banister and make that area very heavy. Since it’s pretty much the first thing you see when you come into the front door of my house (ah, the joy of center-hall colonials), I don’t want it too crowded. I feel like the only thing that would be unobtrusive enough would be a spindly table and a spindly table lamp which would be just as precarious (and attractive) to Q.

I also considered a ceiling light dangling down (maybe an amber moroccan lantern that would tie in with the deco sconces) but I’m afraid that, although it would look good from the living room direction, it would compete with the entryway light and look odd and off balanced from the front door.

So…. this is my dilemma. I don’t want to lose the light source (really the only major one in the room, and it works on the switch you see in the picture) but I don’t want Q swinging on this thing anymore.

Any ideas?