Go to dedicated lighting stores - listed in the yellow pgs, and they'll have more expertise about everything.

I have bought some good lamps over the years and don't regret any of them. Some of the lamps that I got from my mother are over 40 years old and look fantastic because they are well made lamps. The Frederick Cooper lamps for instance look great.

CFL lamps contain trace amounts of mercury. If you break a bulb it's better to be safe and use care, but you will not need to quarantine that part of your house or pay thousands of dollars for hazmat crews to clean up (as internet rumors have tended to claim).

Here is a mercury factsheet from Energy Star.
EPA guidelines for cleaning up a broken CFL bulb here.

Most of the precaution in the second link is around concern for landfill workers (most people do not dispose of broken CFLs in the correct way) or recycling center workers who may be exposed on a continuous basis to improperly disposed CFLs, e.g. someone who just tosses the broken bulb into their trash can or recycling bin.

As for IKEA lights, most are not UL listed. That doesn't mean they are unsafe. UL is an independent testing lab. It's not a "safe" designation (lots of people think it is). IKEA uses a testing lab, just not UL (Underwriter Laboratoriess). UL was formed to reduce insurance claims resulting from electrical devices that were not held to some set of standards. They use ETL (Edison Testing Laboratories). ETL is accepted by all major retailers. UL, ETL, and a third standard CSA are all certified by OSHA as NRTL (Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory).

I'm not an expert, but I did quite a bit of research on this when I was selecting lighting for DD's nursery, and the lighting plan for our new house. IKEA was our forerunner for furniture & lighting (and I happen to be chummy with an IKEA director).

More info on UL v. ETL v. CSA (see slide 2)

Hope this helps! If you ever need info on the specifics of bulb temperature, ballasting, etc. - I know way more than anyone should. :)

Thanks for those suggestions, larke and bumblebeez. I'll check them out.

avesmor, that is a lot of helpful information, thanks! It's amazing what having a baby does for motivation to check everything out. There's way too much out there that you have to be cautious about, but what can you do.

Thanks, I'm going to read over your post again and check out the links. I am sure I will be back with more questions. [g]