The lamp base and head are well made, whimsical, and painted a beautiful gold. I don't mind the cord coming out of the giraffe's body. The issue I had with the lamp is that the lamp shade "harp" (the part that connects the shade to the lamp) is too short to fit any of the standard bulbs that we had. It measures less than 6".  I tried to switch out this lamp's harp and use an existing 8" one that we had, but that didn't work because then the shade sits too far above the giraffe neck and exposes the light bulb hardware. Thankfully, I eventually found a shorter LED bulb. It still sits too close to the lamp's harp than I would like, but will work for now. I'll look for better compatible bulbs (shorter sized bulbs). You will need to unscrew the lamp shade each time you change the bulb. Otherwise, this is a very cute lamp for a child's room.