22 Secret Principles to Beautiful Lighting for Your Home

With the festival of lights just around the corner, now is a good time to brighten up your space, making it look a little extra-special.

This guide offers some simple principles that will enhance the function and aesthetics of illumination around your home.

Before we go in to the details, knowing some concepts about lighting will help in understanding why a type of light will suit a particular set up. There are four types of lighting: ambient, task, accent and decorative lighting. Proper layering of light can enhance colour and ambience. Layering involves the careful use of task, accent, decorative and ambient lighting within each room.

Ambient lighting: General lighting that is not harsh but diffused and illuminates a room. It is the main source of light and is fundamental to a good lighting plan. Usually it emanates from hanging or recessed fixtures which include track lights, chandelier, pendants, wall sconces, wall light or suspension lights. Balance and adaptability are keys to a well-lit living space, which can be achieved through the correct use of ambient lighting. Also known as mood lighting, ambient lighting should be inconspicuous and blend into the surroundings.

How to set up ambient lighting for your home: Make sure you use lights that cover all directions (Omni-directional) for instance pendants, chandeliers, ceiling or wall-mounted fixtures. These lights should light up just enough to give a soft glow to your space. It is not ideal for working closely with things or to highlight specific things around your space. If your ceiling is high, you can use chandeliers, pendants or similar lights and if it’s low, make sure not to use harsh lights. Suspension lights like Calligaris Dorado, Pom Pom or Cygnus are great to get the ambient look. You can use a combination of suspension lights, table lamp and floor lamp in different directions to get the ambient look.

Downlights usually create a gloomy look because the ceiling appears dark and the floor is brightened up. If you’re using downlights make sure you fit lower wattage and more efficient bulbs.

Task Lighting: This is lighting that helps you perform a task and look into details without any hindrance. It specifically illuminates the area of your work, whether for cooking, writing, reading or other similar everyday tasks. This type of lighting helps to stimulate your brain and induces concentration and alertness to perform the task at hand. Some of the ideal task lights include desk, swing arm and floor lamps, under-cabinet and vanity lights, and pendants. Make sure these lights are free of distracting glare and shadows, but bright enough to prevent eye strain.

How to set up Task lighting at your home: Directional lamps or downlights lamps are best employed for this purpose. Task lighting only works well when it is used as a contrasting light. For example, if you have a low lit room with a table lamp turned on, the light in that area will be more effective with fewer glares than if the entire room was lit with a brighter light. Use lamps on your console or side table, study table, bedside tables, coffee tables or anywhere you need a little extra light for working. Use cabinet lights in your kitchen and vanity lights for bathroom or dressing mirrors. Pendants too can be placed in a lot of areas and hang from work spaces. Similarly, table or desk lamps also highlight your furniture if it is kept next to a sofa or bed. A floor lamp next to a sofa is good example of task lighting for a reading area or work space. Use desk, table, and floor lamps in lounge, dining, and bedroom areas where the activity or furniture is likely to change positions. Use fixed, directional lighting where the setup is unlikely to change. Overhead fixtures should work in tandem with task lighting such as a floor lamp or lamp on a side table. Bonaldo Muffin lamp, XXLight and Calligaris Allure, and Lynx are the best examples to get the desired look.

Accent lighting: This is mainly a concentrated light that intents to draw the eye to its focal point creating a visual interest. It highlights an object like painting, sculpture, or feature like the texture of the wall in the room. This type of light creates a very sophisticated atmosphere. Wall lights, recessed and spot lighting, landscape lighting, and table lamps are good examples of accent lighting that defines specific areas. Creating effective accent lighting typically requires at least three times as much light on the focal point as the general lighting around it. Accent lighting is usually created by using track, recessed, or wall-mounted fixtures.

How to set up Accent lighting at your home: Using wall lights will highlight big or small pieces of art in your decor. Recessed or spot lighting can be used to highlight your art, paintings or wall designs. Table lamps can be used to highlight your furniture or any antique piece. Calligaris Pom Pom, Andromeda, Big Wave, and Phoenix help you achieve this look. If your living room does not have an overhead fixture for overall lighting, then using accent lights can make such a room work harder and smarter. This can include spotlights on indoor plants or artwork, or even a light behind a chair to brighten a dim corner. When you add this type of accent lighting, keep in mind that the effect of the light should focus on improving the atmosphere of the room and not make it opaque. The light source itself should seem almost invisible.

Decorative lighting: it is treated as a design element to enhance your decor or space. It does not function just to illuminate a place but to make it look warm and welcoming. For instance, Tonin Casa Spiga light is a two-in-one functional piece that acts as a coat hanger as well as a floor lamp, to brighten up your corners. Bonaldo’s Eos is also a similar piece with the same function.

How to set up Decorative lighting for your home: Use these lights at the corners of your room so that the details of your decor are seen with a naked eye. You can use these at your entrance too to create a welcoming and inviting environment that encourages people to linger.

Dos and don’ts

• If your living space is wide and spacious, then a lot of lighting elements can be used to illuminate the room. On the other hand, for more compact spaces, are better served by fewer lighting elements.
• For high ceilings, you can use chandeliers and other bright lights. Low ceilings need suspension or low-key lights so that the light is not harsh.
• Use lighting close to a mirror as it will bounce into dark corners and brighten dead ends.
• In living rooms, use a combination of floor lamps, table lamps, and down- to help you achieve a variety of functions and activities in that space.
• Bedrooms should have good reading lights at the bed and desk, and a task light for getting dressed. Any overhead lighting should be fit with a dimmer.
• Use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) over fluorescent tubes, as the latter make everything look off-colour.
• Floor lamps and table lamps should be placed below your eye level.
• Floor lamps decorate your space with the luminous physicality of their oblong shapes while small table lamps dissipate the darkness and colour the environments.
• Use suspension lamps to light up a room, highlighting its surfaces, and to project their multi-faceted personality into the rooms.
• Use floor lamps to decorate and create points of light that, when arranged carefully, generate richly evocative atmospheres.
• Use versatile table lamps to draw attention to the surfaces and objects they illuminate.
• Add a dimmer. This allows you to easily change the mood and brightness of your lighting depending on the time of day.
• Incandescent bulbs produce a warm, yellow glow. Halogen light is clear and clean. Fluorescent light, which can be blue or full spectrum, creates a more modern appearance, and only needs to be changed every few years. Choose whichever you feel will give you a desired look by keeping certain rules in mind.
• Table lamps and floor lamps work well to complement existing overhead lighting by enhancing a corner that might normally be dim.
• The material and colour of your furniture can play a role in your decision to use warm or cool lights, since the variation of lighting colour can make room colours appear very vibrant or quite dull.
• Match the lamp’s colour temperature to the tones of your room. Warm colour temperatures render warm colours like reds, yellows and browns well; cool colour temperatures render cool colours like greys, greens and blues better. In rooms following these general rules, furnishings appear more vibrant.
• While in a living room, opt for a floor lamp next to a couch or your favourite reading chair. In dressing room and bathrooms, the lighting at the mirror should be free from shadows and glaring light.
• Measure out the space, and ceiling height before ordering to ensure enough head room will be available below the hanging chandelier or suspension light
• Design your lighting in such a way that you will not need lights turned on during daylight hours. Avoid over lighting your rooms.
• Create task or accent lighting with directional lighting.
• Create general lighting with non-directional lighting.
• Lighting is for ambiance, aesthetics, tasks, and seeing better in your home.  Each room in your home should have a mood you want to set, as well as a function you want your lighting to serve.

Eventually, creating a warm, welcoming room is easier with well-planned, well-placed lighting.

Wishing you a happy festival of lights!