Lighting
Post inspired by comments from ‘Johnson’ on the Homeone forum website.
Light is one of the most important thing in a house.
During the day its nice to get as much natural light into the house as possible while avoiding glare.
When the sun goes down its a different matter. An overall light level for the whole room is pretty boring.
There’s two keys to successful lighting:
Layering
This involves various lights in the room that illuminate areas for their specific use for example.
- A lamp on a side table.
- A standard lamp that provides light over your shoulder when you are reading.
- Spotlights to illuminate a picture.
- Wall or floor uplights to brighten the room without any harsh glare (if you can ever see a bare bulb or filament with the naked eye, you’ve done something wrong).
Having multiple light sources allows you to change the mood as you see fit.
Shadows
Shadowing is a forgotten element of a good lighting plan. While the multiple downlight brigade likes to light every single corner of the room, they forget that the human eye is drawn to bright areas — and you can only get those with contrasting shadowed areas.
There’s nothing wrong with a dim backwall that can only be illuminated by a single lamp, or a comfy chair secreted in a shadowed alcove. Shadows can provide drama, texture, or even comfort.
It’s possible to create wonderful spaces with the simplest lighting setups. Very few situations call for bright, overhead downlights – but that doesn’t stop people from using rows of the things across their lounge room ceiling, like some sort of inverted airport runway!
So forget the downlights. There’s plenty of shops with beautiful lights. Get creative! You might even save some money.
Photograph comes from www.iseecubed.com
See Why I Won’t have Downlights Again
More about selecting finishes including 24 pages of Check Lists in the‘Selection / Pre-Start Guide’
Thanks for the mention, Brian. There are some wonderful texts out there that go into more detail about layering and shadow — the author Sally Storey has some beauties on Amazon (“Perfect Lighting” is one of my favourites). Happy lighting!