5 Tips for Lighting your Living Room

Our lounges are normally the most versatile room of our homes. Having a well lit lounge will help to easily transform the room, one moment it may need to be well lit for a family board game session next a cosy place to enjoy a film on the sofa.

The 2 common problems with lighting, is either there is too much or too little. An over lit room will have you feeling like your at sport stadium and can even leave you with a headache. A dingy lit room will have a gloomy feel which is not good for us.

There are three different type of lighting to think about.

General/ Ambient Lighting; This is our main central ceiling light.
Task Lighting; These are practical lights which are needed for work areas, reading or any other task.
Accent Lighting; These are lights used to create atmosphere and mood.

Here are a few tips to ensure you make the most out of our lighting and lounge.

1- Start with the Central Ceiling Light

Its always best to start with the central light as once its fitted you will be able to see where other lighting may need to be placed to combat any gloomy areas. Don’t be scared to oversize your central ceiling light as this will naturally be a focus point of your room.

2- Finding the Balance between Style and Functionally.

Its easy for us to be drawn to a particular look of a light as its personal taste, but the next thoughts needs to be the technically side of lighting.

– What is the light source? LEDs are more energy efficient compared to light bulbs, light bulbs can have a more homely feel compared to LEDs.

– Light temperature and colour? There colour of light ranges from warm to cool, for living rooms it best to pick a light which is between warm to warm white. In technical terms this is between 2700 kelvins to 3000 kelvins.

– Dimmer? A dimmer is not essential on all lights, consider if you need a dimmer for that particulate light source.

3- Add Task Lighting

Have a look at your room and identity the areas which will need to be well lit. It may be a reading nook, a homework space or even part of your sofa where you may enjoy sitting and kitting. Pick out practical lights, such as a table lamp or an adjustable spot light. Remember the natural light throughout the day changes, your task light may need to adjust with this, a dimmer is great option for task lighting.

4- Add Atmosphere with Accent Lights

Once you have most of your lighting for your lounge its now time to look for any dark spots which needs softening up, wall lights are great to fill voids or even add a bit of drama with shadows. Select lights with will help change the mood of your room, a dimmable floor lamp is an easy choice whereas wall lights can be really effective but not ideal if your not able to wire these in.

5 – No Such Thing as Too Many Lights

Don’t worry about over doing the amount of lights in your living area, the more options you have the better. Ideally you need to be able to independently turn on each light, this will give you more options to light your room depending on what you need it for at that time.