HOME LIGHTING DESIGN BUYERS GUIDE
Design the perfect lighting solution to enhance your home
Often overlooked when renovating or planning a new home, a good lighting scheme will make a real difference to how the spaces in a home are perceived. Choosing the correct home lighting is as important as the choosing the correct colour scheme.
Fundamentals of a good lighting scheme
A good lighting scheme should go unnoticed complimenting the space it is illuminating making it feel light and airy, whilst bad light planning will stick out like a sore thumb, using stark white lights in confined spaces will cause eye strain and headaches conversely under illuminating the practical rooms in your house such as kitchens and bathroom will cause frustration for years to come.
The answer is to create a lighting scheme which is tailored to the house and flexible enough to work under several scenarios, a typical example is a bedroom which is required to be warm and relaxing in the evenings whilst light and functional in the mornings, a well designed multifunctional lighting scheme will be able to cover both scenarios with ease.
Working with natural light
It's important to take into consideration how natural lighting will alter the ambience of a room, the direction from where the light enters the room will determine the quality of the light. We want to maximise the natural light available but in rooms where light quality is poor the lighting scheme should create a balanced natural feel.
North facing rooms will receive indirect light which can feel cold and harsh, east facing rooms will receive strong light during the morning but this will quickly fade creating long shadows into the afternoon. A strong ambient lighting scheme should be used in these rooms to reduce glare and create a consistant illumination throughout the day.
South and West facing rooms will receive the lions share of light through out the day, these rooms should be considered for the main living areas such as kitchens and family rooms. They will require a softer ambient light with specific task lighting such as spotlighting for daily tasks.
Roles of designer lighting
A good contemporary lighting scheme should use a combination light fixtures to achieve several different roles when illuminating a room, depending on the room you will want to include ambient, accent and task lighting.
Ambient Lighting Design
This is general purpose light providing the main illumination for the room, typically this will be a pendant or chandelier in the center of the ceiling however there are plenty of more exciting ceiling lighting options to play as well as wall sconces to provide ambient lighting. Take a look at our ceiling lighting guide and wall lighting guide for more information.
Accent Lighting Design
Good accent lighting will make a lighting scheme come alive with texture, adding depth, shade and focal points to a room. There are plenty of fixtures available to play with such as spotlights, downlights and track lights to create your desired effect. Take a look at our ceiling lighting guide for tips on creating brilliant accent lighting.
Task Lighting Design
As the name suggests this type of lighting is used to fulfil a very specific task, be it a reading lamp by your bedside or an under cabinet light focused on a work surface in a kitchen the goal is to illuminate a surface you using to perform a task. Ideally you want your task lighting to be flexible so you can change direction if necessary and it should provide a fairly bright light beam as in most cases it needs to stronger than the other lights in the room.
Calculating required light
Each room requires a different amount of light depending on the size and the function of the room, volume of light is measured in a unit called lumens, our lumen calculator here will help you determine the volume of lumens you need to adequately light the room, once you know the total lumens you can plan your fittings and lightbulbs to achieve the right light balance.
Creating a lighting design
Once you've measured each room and have total volume of lumens required you need to work out how the room will be used, who will be using it and at what time of day.
Take a pen and pencil and go into every room taking a note of any features you want accent or any areas which will require task lighting. Look at fixed features which can't be moved such as fireplaces and alcoves and think about how what kind of light fixtures will work around these spaces. It's important to consider the objects in the room and how the lighting interact with them, for example you wouldn't want direct light focused on a TV as this will create glare.
Remember to be consistant through out the rooms of the house, the aim is the create a consistent look and feel from room to room with the lighting simply complimenting the atmosphere and drawing the eye to accented features.
For more information on lighting specific rooms take a look at our kitchen lighting, bedroom lighting and bathroom lighting buyers guides on the left