Starting an interior design project without a lighting expert is like only eating the free bread at a restaurant. It might taste good, but you’re missing out on a lot of other delicious food. Good lighting can make a room feel more alive, adding layers to the design.
The right lighting can make a room look bigger, cozier, and highlight the best parts. It’s about mixing light and dark to add energy to a room. Sometimes, architects or designers just plan simple ceiling lights, but that might not show off their work properly. Bringing in lighting professionals to work with your designer or architect can really make your space stand out.
The Role of Lighting in Interior Design
Lighting is just as crucial as any other part of design. It can completely change how a room looks and feels. We use lights and shadows to make a space welcoming yet full of drama and mood. Imagine we want to show off art on a wall. We’d use a spotlight on the art but keep the area around it darker. This makes the art stand out to us.
We’re experts at mixing different kinds of lights like spotlights, overhead lights, wall lights, hidden lights, and even special lamps to make each room interesting and layered. We use different lighting tricks depending on what we need. For example, to highlight a small table with flowers, we might use a specific spotlight. But we also mix in softer lights to brighten up the place. When we light up things like pretty curtain materials or set up bright spots for reading or cooking, we do it in unique ways.
How does natural light affect interior design?
Natural light is very important for designers. Both interior and lighting designers pay close attention to how sunlight enters a room because it influences where things are placed. It’s just as key as man-made lighting. In a room with big windows, sunlight fills the space, making it bright and airy. Then, we have to figure out what kind of artificial lighting works best at different times.
Even with natural light, we still use lights to make certain areas stand out. They can light up dark corners, brighten a workspace, or show off art. LED lights can add a cozy glow to cabinets and important parts of your room, working with sunlight to focus attention and create a soft look. The main idea is to adjust lighting for different parts of the day, blending natural and artificial light. We can set up lighting controls to easily change the lighting and get the best look at any time.
How does artificial light change the look of a room?
Artificial light helps us see and focus on certain parts of a room because we naturally look at the brightest spot. For example, in a kitchen, we might use lights to highlight flowers on an island or table. We also use lights around the edges of a room to make it feel bigger. Lights can softly glow on walls or cabinets to reflect light and add warmth.
It’s important to have good lighting for tasks like cooking, making drinks, or finding things in cabinets. Soft, spread-out light is nice for creating a cozy atmosphere. With a mix of different artificial lights, a room can feel brighter, more interesting, and have different levels of light and shadow.
What does decorative lighting do in a room?
Decorative lighting, like a big hanging light, a unique wall light, or a special lamp, isn’t just about looking good. Although we might first notice a beautiful light hanging over a table, smaller lights nearby help make the lighting even better.
Decorative lights are great, but the best lighting plans mix them with other types of lights for the perfect effect. For example, when you want to relax in the evening, you might just use these pretty lights to watch TV, read, or enjoy a drink. Other times, you’ll use more lights to brighten up the whole room.
Understanding Architectural Lighting in Home Decor
Architectural lighting involves using lights that are part of the building or furniture itself. This type of lighting includes hidden lights like those in the ceiling, lights aimed up, LED strips, and lights that wash over floors. These aren’t lights you see directly; they’re built into the room’s design. They’re great for showing off the room’s materials and providing overall lighting. When placed in areas like shelves, cupboards, or around the ceiling, these lights create depth, highlight key spots, and add layers to the lighting effect.
For homes with unique features, like old plaster work or columns, you can use lights to spotlight these details from below. Architectural lighting is also handy for leading the way through different areas of your home, like from one room to the next, along hallways, or up staircases. Lights placed by doorways or windows help frame the outside view. You can even use this type of lighting outdoors to highlight trees or textured walls. Lights outside can draw your attention beyond the windows, making your living space feel more open.
How to Combine Decorative and Architectural Lighting in Your Home
Getting the perfect lighting in your home means using both decorative and built-in lights together. Our job is to look at your room or blueprints, think of different ideas, and then plan out how to layer the lights to get the right balance. We aim to create a cozy feel with general lighting, spotlight specific areas, and include built-in lighting for that special touch.
One way to make a room stand out is by using hidden lighting tricks. For example, in the kitchen, you might have overhead lights over the island, but adding a strip of LED lights underneath can add depth and a cool effect. This might not make the room much brighter, but it changes how the room feels at night. Another idea is for a dining area with a bench seat: placing an LED strip behind the bench that lights up the wall can make the room feel bigger and more inviting. If there’s a decorative ceiling feature, it might not stand out on its own, but lighting it up with an LED strip can draw attention to it and make the whole room seem brighter by bouncing light around the room.
What kind of light is best for my interior design project?
For lighting nowadays, we mostly use LED lights, but it’s really important to pick lights that have good quality. We pay a lot of attention to the light’s color and how consistently it shows true colors. We prefer lights with a Color Rendering Index (CRI) higher than 90 because they show the most natural colors. CRI tells us how accurately a light shows the real color of whatever it’s shining on. Colors like reds, deep blues, and greens look much more authentic under high CRI lights.
When you’re choosing lights for a room, especially if it has white or light-colored walls, it’s important that all the lights have the same color temperature, which is measured in Kelvins. For built-in lights, a slightly cooler light color, like 2,700K, is good, while decorative lights like lamps and hanging lights look better with a warmer color, around 2,400K. Our goal is to make all these lights work together nicely. You might have ceiling lights and wall lights at 2,700K, while your lamps and other decorative lights are warmer at 2,400K. Then, LED strips hidden in furniture can match the warm tone of your decorative lights.
When should you hire a lighting designer?
You should reach out to a lighting designer right after you’ve figured out where to put your furniture with the help of your interior designer or architect. Your project will end up better if a lighting designer is part of the team from the start, ensuring that all the lights fit perfectly with the overall design. On bigger projects, we might also team up with a project manager. We aim to make your space look its best, and getting us involved early means we’ll have to make fewer changes down the line.
