How To Pick Lighting For Your Home

Picking light for your home as you begin the process of decorating your new home, or renovating your old space can be a super confusing and tricky task. There ...

Picking light for your home as you begin the process of decorating your new home, or renovating your old space can be a super confusing and tricky task. There are numerous blogs giving in depth knowledge on lighting. However, you don’t want to get lost in all that knowledge and get even more excused. The probability of making errors in picking lighting for home is high and you have to take a lot into consideration like natural light available, the colour of your walls, the mood you want to set in different areas and so on. Here are a few basic points to keep in mind when you are picking out light for your home.

There are three basic kinds of light for home; ambient, accent and task lighting. Ambient Lighting provides general lighting to your space, simply to light it up. Accent lights, as the name suggests, provide mood and variation to lighting, used to light up art work, create a peaceful ambience for the living or bedroom area and so on. Task lighting is used for specific purposes or tasks. For instance, study light, bathroom or dressing room light and so on.

Amongst the kinds of light bulbs or tubes available in the market, the main ones are incandescent, CFL (compact fluorescent lamp), halogen and LED (light emitting diode). Incandescent bulbs are almost redundant now, because of the high energy consumption and short life. They come at a lesser cost than other lights. CFL and halogen lights are an improvement on incandescent and are more energy efficient and long lasting than incandescent lights. They are available at a reasonable cost in the markets. Led lights, however, beat all the other lights in features, being environment-friendly, energy efficient, home friendly and very long lasting. They come at a much higher cost than the other lights, but the cost benefit ratio is much higher as they will last you much longer.

Lights are available in the market according to the colour that they emit, that is essentially also a difference of light temperature. The most widely available choices in India are warm white, cool white, daylight and yellow. Warm white is suitable for general lighting and emits a slightly less bright white light. Cool white emits stark white light, suitable for task lighting, unsuitable for general living spaces. Daylight is somewhere between warm and cool white, also suitable for task lighting such as in the kitchen, bathroom or dressing room or ambient lighting. Yellow light is a warm emission of colour, suitable for leisure areas like the living room.

Think about what kind of lighting you want for which area. Adjustable lighting is great for your bedroom or reading and entertainment room. Adjustable lighting can switch from daylight to warm white and yellow. Mood lighting, which is a variation of accent lighting, is great for the room, installed in the ceiling or beside your bed in lamps. For the study and kid’s room, brighter lights like daylight are more suitable. Yellow and warm white are good for living and dining areas. You can also have a single extendable white light lamp for reading in your bedroom. There is no strict rule book for this, and you can decide according to your preference.

Light forms an important part of the decor, and can also by itself serve as the decor. Pendant lights, chandeliers, table and floor lamps, and recessed lights are some examples of decorative lighting. Pendant lights are hanging or suspended lights. These are great for over your kitchen table top, corners of your rooms, or for your dining table, especially when used in clusters. Chandeliers are an old favourite and great for providing ambient or accent lighting to your space. With the many designs available today, you are sure to find something that you like. Lamps are an important part of the modern interior design and add to the aesthetics of a space. Recessed lights can increase the appeal of low lit areas like a corridor, staircase or passage. Using shadow lighting under false ceiling can also create a dramatic effect.

With these pro tips under your belt, you have enough knowledge ammunition to kick start purchasing and planning lights for your home.