Home Lighting Guide

Get the lighting right and it can be the making of a room; skimp on this essential design detail and you may end up in gloom.

There's a good, a bad and a downright ugly way of lighting any space. Look at it this way: if lighting is an ingredient in the recipe of putting together a room, then it's the icing on the cake or the exquisite sauce on the steak. If it's good then it's Michelin starred.

If it's bad you may have perfected the main part of the dish but the overall meal will be just average. And if it's downright ugly then you have ruined the meal. You waste all the effort of putting together a lovely interior if you fail to pay attention to how the space is lit. Lighting ties quite neatly in to how the area will be used. Every room in your home serves a variety of purposes, so allow for an assortment of lighting options to fulfil each and every need. Lighting also has a role in drawing attention to specific features in a room, and the reverse of that is that it can be used as a means of disguise by leaving certain areas in darkness.

SORTING THE STYLES

You can reduce lighting to three basic types, and to create a successful scheme you need to layer all three: ambient, task and accent lighting. Ambient light is designed to offer an all-over well-lit room. This is the starting point to any scheme and the most basic type of lighting. Task lighting, as the name suggests, works to illuminate specific tasks. These might be working at your computer, applying your make-up or cooking. Its purpose is to provide enough light for the activity concerned - enough to prevent eyestrain. Accent lighting is the type that can often be neglected but brings out the best in a room. It will highlight the best features such as works of art, pieces of furniture or a particular area - a dining table in a kitchen/diner is a classic example.

ROOM BY ROOM

The first space that you come to in a home is the hall. Do something different on the stairs. Position a recessed spot light or low-level wall washer beside every second or third step, making sure you have an on/off switch at the bottom and top. Moving into the lounge, why not avoid an overhead light altogether and have an electrician put two or three lamps on a circuit that is operated by a single switch? If you have shelving in alcoves either side of a chimneybreast, then use down-lighters to highlight the items that are displayed. Through to the kitchen, make sure that you include lights that run underneath wall-mounted cabinets as well as your overhead strip or spots. Have the different lights on separate circuits so you can use as much or as little light as you need. This will also mean you can transform a practical and functional working area into somewhere appropriately lit for an intimate dinner party. Jump up the stairs to the bedroom, and you must have lights at either side of the bed. Move to the bathroom and make sure that you can see to cleanse your face. An illuminated mirror is a must.

When dressing up your home, lighting is an essential tool in creating the right look and style for every room.


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