Choosing the lighting around your home can dramatically change your perception of the space around you. Lighting doesn’t just affect how light or dark a room is, but combined with different colors and decorations can also affect how you feel.
Starting with the kitchen, even and bright lighting is needed in functional work spaces and over the stove so consider a wall mounted light in areas where you are preparing vegetables or reading recipe books. If your kitchen has a dining area within it, having some form of up lighting in this area of the kitchen can bring a warm glow without being too intrusive, unique chandeliers are great for this and can be as simple or intricate as you like.
Moving on to your living room, it really depends on how you use it. For a cozy feel just to relax and enjoy peace and quiet, low lighting with lamps on tables for reading the newspaper or a book is just what you need. Alternatively, floor lamps require less space and they are much easier to move around than a table! If your living room is more of a lively hangout where you host parties and the floor takes a lot of spills, we suggest keeping unfixed lighting to a minimum. Embedded ceiling lighting is popular due to being nearly impossible to destroy from being walked into, and LED ceiling bulbs usually guarantee a bright and lively ambience. Installing lighting dimmers however can set the mood for when you just want to relax in your living room, whether you’re curling up in the evening or just resting your eyes from those bright office lights.
For bathroom lighting you want to feel good about yourself when the dressing gown is off, but you still want to have good lighting when putting on your face or shaving away that stubble for a big night out. Having an encased tube light over your oval bathroom mirror will optimize your facial assets, and your make up routine will not be affected by sideways shadows when the lights are dim. Avoid having any lighting directly over the bath as it will be blindingly bright as you lie back and try and relax. Instead, have all lighting fixtures in the sink region to give optimal brightness in the areas where it’s needed most.
Corridors and hallways- Your hallway needs to be particularly bright as it makes your house look particularly bright and welcoming especially when you are entertaining guests. Corridor lighting needs to be consistent so that shadows are cast into corners. Ideally you will have switches at both ends of corridors and at the bottom of the stairs (if you have them) to make it easier to maneuver and not be groping in the darkness to make it back to your room! There’s a lot of choice in corridor lighting, as long as it’s evenly space and accessible you can’t really go too far wrong, whether you go for a hanging lamp, wall lamps or chandeliers, the choice is endless.
Finally the bedroom, we all know it’s not just for sleeping in and clever lighting will make all the difference to your room as it has so many functionalities. Particular focus and bright lighting needs to be used on areas used for vanity, reading, writing or computing, whilst softer and shaded lighting will aid areas for sleeping or with softer furnishings. We recommend a ceiling mounted fixture for a grand central presence and then the use of wall sconces and lamps to light individual corners and work spaces. Make sure that the switches are within easy reach of your bed or your desk so that you don’t have to tiptoe to and from the door to get to your bed at night.
Content Provided By: Julia Ritzenthaler