Shining Some Light on Your Home
All the wonderful things that make your home "your home" deserve some well-lit attention. After all, how could you appreciate a beautiful painting or your grandmother's 80-year-old set of antique china if you couldn't see them properly! Correct lighting can create moods, affect attitudes and be the dividing line between a house and a home. For this reason, a well thought-out lighting plan is an essential, and often overlooked, aspect of design. Whether you want to create an attractive setting for your living room, accentuate the raised ceilings of a Victorian home, or just brighten up your day by brightening up your kitchen, the right lighting can meet these needs. By understanding the modern developments in lighting, and keeping a few simple techniques in mind, you can build the right mood for any room in your home while remaining as energy conscious as ever. Let's shed a little light on the subject.
Rather than preparing to spend money right off the bat, first consider what natural light exists in a space. A good architect tries to make use of all available natural light, whether that means angling rooms in a certain direction
and allowing sunlight to pour in at specific times of the year, or constructing large archways that invite the light in and add height to a room. Take note of how the light enters the windows, where the natural shadows lie and how well the natural illumination brightens up the feel of the room. In addition to direct light, many folks have incorporated mirrors into their interior design that throw the light around and deepen the feel of the room. This way, your natural light bounces around the space and creates an invigorating sense of presence. Using natural light, as with artificial light, the possibilities are only limited to the extent of your creativity.
A good mastery of the natural daylight in a home is very agreeable, yet that only solves half the problem! The use of artificial light can be as, if not more, effective in creating mood if employed properly. There are an enormous amount of possibilities with artificial lighting, and to choose the right one depends on several factors. Generally speaking one of the first things you should consider when beginning to design your lighting plan is to ask yourself what activities will take place in that space. In a kitchen, for example, you would want a layering combination of several types of lighting that help illuminate the overall space, yet can be concentrated for specific jobs like cutting vegetables or cleaning counters. The overall lighting is called "ambient lighting", and this type of lighting can be used in conjunction with the existing natural light of the room. The concentrated light, however, is called "task lighting." With task lighting, the illumination is usually most effective when it is between your eyes and the working space. Under-cabinet lights are popular in kitchens for this reason, where they provide an excellent, bright workspace for cooking, cleaning and eating. There is a third type of lighting that should be mentioned, called "accent lighting." This type of lighting accentuates decorative or significant features of your home. A spotlight on an oil painting or up-angle lights above cupboards are examples of accent lighting.
Depending on the function of the room, the mood desired and the creativity of the designer, a combination of all three types of lighting can be employed or layered to achieve the effect. Perhaps you would like to brighten up a bedroom to alleviate a dark, depressing feeling that prevents you from spending time inside. You could add more ambient lighting or, depending on your taste, could add task lighting in certain areas to encourage more activity there. Accent lighting could be used to accentuate furniture or artwork. For busier areas such as living rooms or entrance halls, all three types of lighting could be combined and produce a bright, pleasant place to spend time.
In lighting design, it is commonly mistaken that one single, central light can properly light up a room. More often than not, this type of approach results in an unbalanced amount of light, creating shadows and poor vision in some areas and visual discomfort in others. In areas such as a kitchen or large bathroom, this insufficient lighting can quickly become hazardous. Thus a well lit, layered lighting plan is necessary not just to safely move around, but also to create a warm, attractive environment that invites people in. With a little creativity, you can produce a well-lit space that remains as personal and unique as you.
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Once the purpose and potential of a room has been identified, the combination of the 3 types of lighting have been decided upon and you're ready to put the plan into motion, then you have a number of options on how to achieve that lighting effect. There are different lighting fixtures like recessed lighting, mounted lighting fixtures and using indirect lighting. There are also numerous types of actual lights and, depending on the desired effect, certain types of lights are better suited than others. For example, traditional incandescent bulbs that have been around for many years are now being phased out with longer life, more energy efficient bulbs like LED's and compact fluorescent lights. The old-fashioned light bulb is cheap and relatively easy to dispose of, yet extremely energy inefficient, using only about 5% of energy consumed to produce light. The other 95% is converted to heat and thus wasted. Since the typical household spends around 15% of it's energy bill on lighting, a more sensible solution exists in the use of fluorescent lighting, which use only 20% of that of a light bulb. The relative cost of a compact fluorescent bulb (which is a fluorescent light that fits into a bulb fixture, as opposed to a fluorescent tube. Commonly called CFL's) is a bit higher than that of a standard light bulb, but lasts up to 10 times as long. There are some drawbacks of using compact fluorescent bulbs, and some lighting limitations as well. Generally, CFL's are used for ambient and background lighting, not necessarily directional lighting. For instance, you wouldn't use a CFL as an outdoor spotlight on a motion switch because of it's poor ability to focus a directional beam and the time it takes to achieve maximum output. Fluorescent lights in general require a minute or so to fully illuminate, making them poor choices to scare away prowlers. They also are generally unable to dim, giving them an "all or nothing" application and making them more appropriate for bright lighting in small spaces, such as a storeroom or entranceway.
Halogen lamps, on the contrary, make for excellent directional lights. They are a great choice for accent lighting or task lighting. Halogen lights can be used in almost every room in the house depending on the task at hand. They can be fixed in free-standing mounts next to a sofa for reading, mounted underneath a fish tank for an interesting raised light effect or shown through a stained glass piece. My family uses a set of five halogen spotlights on a ceiling track to illuminate their collection of masks from all over the world. A halogen's small size and intense output allows them to be used in a variety of applications. They last almost twice as long as standard incandescent bulbs and are more energy efficient. The downside is the heat production, which must be addressed in order to avoid a fire hazard, and the fact that the bulbs require special fixtures.
Lighting control is another factor which should be considered when choosing a lighting strategy for your home. There are standard switches, dimmers, sensors and timers, all employed with certain creative needs in mind. Ambient illumination in areas with windows could work in conjunction with a photoelectric light meter that dims the artificial light as natural light becomes
brighter. Dimmers on central fixtures could be used to set a softer, more conversational mood with guests. Motion sensors turn on lights as someone enters a space, saving on energy bills. Timers work in a similar fashion, but keep the light illuminated for only a certain amount of time. The idea is only practical in certain situations such as closets or outdoor lights, not necessarily for well-lit spaces that could create a hazard if the lights were to suddenly go out. As a general rule however, each fixture should have its own switch to avoid over-lighting a space and/or wasting energy.
The infinite combinations of interior and exterior lighting for your home can be employed to meet the needs of all those who use that space. Depending on the environment and the willingness to employ a dash of creativity, any lighting challenge can be addressed. And these challenges are worthy of being overcome. Proper lighting can raise the spirits and improve general well-being. Utilizing a combination of all three types of lighting can be a cost-effective solution that balances out both function and taste. Whatever your project, we can help you design a lighting plan to fit your personal needs which will in turn help you create your desired environment.
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