Design is indeed defined by light and shade. Light can adorn the atmosphere of your home by elevating the mood, calming your soul, and making you the most productive version of yourself. The role of lights is increasing in interior designing since with a simple flick of a switch, it can transform a basic home into a space worth featuring in magazines.
Do you know the secret of a smartly lit interior? You need light fixtures that are smartly chosen by paying attention to minute details so that you get the perfect lighting for each space in your home. The types and placement of those lights, if done aesthetically, can define your mood when you step into a room.
The importance of light is getting multi-dimensional with the fact of how the right blend of light can make room for creating a warm, inviting, and cosy space forever.
Types of lighting used in home interior
1. Natural lighting
By using exterior glazing like windows, doors, and skylights, you can bring abundant natural light into your home. Sunlight helps in enhancing serotonin, the happy chemical, which makes you active and rejuvenates you. Natural light works magically to make space look less confined and slightly larger.
To ensure sufficient natural lighting for your home, make sure to install windows. The choice of colours for walls, ceilings, furniture, and curtains also plays a vital role in circulating sufficient sunlight in the house. The brighter the colour, the more lit up space.
2. Ambient or general lighting
Ambient lighting is used to brighten up space uniformly, preferably used in the area where we perform our daily activities. Such lighting options are perfect for living areas where we spend time together to watch our favorite shows.
3. Task lighting
Task lighting provides desired illuminance for the performance of certain tasks like study, office works, cooking, or baking activities by providing the desired illuminance. Proper task lighting helps us by maximizing visual aid by putting less pressure on eyes along with reduced magnification. The spotlight in your kitchen top or your wardrobe and the table-led lamp on the study tables are the best examples of task lighting.
4. Accent lighting
Accent lighting is generally used to focus light on a particular area or object to highlight the things that you want to be noticed. It creates dramatic points by highlighting artwork, photo frames, entrance, plants, textured walls. Accent lighting can bring warmth and a cozy feeling if lighting gets done in the right manner.
4. Mood lighting
To beautify your favourite corner, mood lighting is used to make the space inviting. Mood lighting can boost your mood after a tiring day by relieving stress and increasing motivation. Color-changing lights, led strips, fairy lights, etc., can be used to create the mood by circulating good voices through a beautiful pattern of lights.
How to use proper lighting in various parts of your home
Each part of our house is different yet special, and so should be the lighting of different parts of our house. The amount of light we need for our study room can’t be the same as the bedroom or dining area. Here is the basic guide to lighting different spaces of your house with the desired lights along with the special touch to make each corner nicer and inviting.
1. Bedroom Lights
The bedroom is the multitasking room for most of us. Apart from sleeping, it’s the nook for many to binge-watch web series to read, and even do office work. A lamp, pendants, wall sconces can be used to allow the desired light as per the required activity in your bedroom. Tape light and recessed lights are great options to add visual embellishment to your bedroom décor. Flush-mount fixtures are the contemporary preference for many where the light stays directly against the ceiling. Most preferred among them are the light bulbs covered with a decorative glass or plastic bowl-shaped cover. Pendant lights can add a big splash in your bedroom, hanging down from the ceiling on a chain or a long rod.
2. Bathroom
Choosing the best lighting way for your bathroom is thicker than you can ever imagine. You will desire enough and direct light at your grooming corner of the bathroom, but when you take a shower, you will wish to make it the most relaxing one in dim light. Wall sconces on both sides of the mirror are perfect for your grooming task, or a bath bar can be another possible option according to the size of the room, and make sure the light is over the mirror. The rest of the bathroom décor can rely on ambient light like recessed lighting to provide an even and soothing lighting effect.
3. Dining area Lights
A multi-light chandelier is the best fit for even light distribution over a dining room. It can eliminate dark shadow spots while connecting people sitting below it. To create an ambiance that appeals to your guests as well as a family member, multiple glass globes are the smarter option. To perfectly fit low and moody lighting for a romantic dinner or more light for a party or to satire your guilty pleasure of stomach, it’s always recommendable to have a dining room lighting on dimmers to control the layer of lighting. You can add accent lighting with table lamps and wall sconces near your dining table and specifically in the multipurpose table like a home bar.
4. Kitchen Lights
A great task lighting under the kitchen cabinets and shelves is the must to have for your smooth kitchen work with shadow-free light. Uplight from the top of the kitchen cabinet is the contemporary lighting option to add more general light with style. Low glare directional downlights are perfect with the soft reflected light along with the lighting up the inside of cupboards when they are open. Accent lighting like recessed and adjustable light fixtures can be added to glass-front cabinets to illuminate your luxury collections of glassware and another crockery to bring it into the spotlight.
5. Living room
Choosing the lighting for the living room depends upon what your family prefers to do in the living areas. The task lighting can be chosen following those active light reading, playing chess, having social gatherings, or simply watching TV.
As most of the living rooms are places for watching Tv together with family, bias lighting can be used smartly to avoid glare. Bias lighting involves placing lighting behind the television to decrease the strain on the eyes.
6. Outdoor lighting
Outdoor lighting aesthetically beautifies our houses while also being a key role player in the safety and security of the house. Proper outdoor lighting can manifold the value of the house by illuminating the outdoor space uniformly to create a landscape-like view.
Choose the perfect external light fittings along with the outdoor LED light fixtures. Hanging lights, posts, and wall lights are great options for adding ambient lighting to the outside of the house areas. Pathway light, along with security lights, is the task lights needed to be installed for security and convenience. Add landscape kits along with the spotlights to achieve the accent lighting that can make your house look more appealing and inviting.
7. Study room
The study room requires a lot of light to create less pressure on the eyes, may it be natural or artificial lights. Adjustable desk lamps are preferred, which will allow your kids to move their neck and head at various angles while reading for making the future of India. A wall-mounted stylish lamp near your bed to read novels or comics is the perfect choice for any avid reader. Make the study room a place your kids will love to spend their moments by decorating it with some Pendant fixtures.
8. Staircase
The staircase must be decorated with lights in the tone of other parts of the house to make each space alive. Brightening up the stairs with hanging lamps, scones, and recessed light for safety and enhancing the interior. Wall-mounted recessed lights and spotlights help in illuminating the stairs with a warm and soft glow. Apart from that, strip lights are a great home décor accessory to light up a staircase that can be placed under each stair or on the hand railing.
Interior lighting is more than just about lights; it’s about the right choice of colors, incorporating accessories at the right place for the light to penetrate through the area where it is needed. Bringing your personal touch, along with the needs of your family through lighting, is a trickier task. At HomeLane, we take care of each of the minute details with a promise of delivering good health and positive vibes while designing your home sweet home with the perfect choice of lightings.
