It is proven that the amount of light and the type of light in your home or office can make a huge difference to how you feel in the space and what you are able to use the space for. This article provides some simple but effective interior lighting tips that will allow you to choose the right lighting style, brightness, and design of lighting for your interior spaces.
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Check energy consumption
One of the first steps must be to check the existing lighting and ensure that you are using the most energy-efficient light bulbs and fittings.
Indeed, it’s about how bright you need the space and the atmosphere that you are trying to create, but modern developments mean that you can also go as green as possible while remaining as bright as possible. Use a simple light energy-saving calculator to decide on the best bulbs and lights for each specific space.
Have an overall lighting plan
As with any other design, renovation, or room lighting plan, you should have an idea of what the issues are and how you intend to solve them, and how much money you have available to do just this.
This will determine whether you will redo the entire lighting system from switch to bulb and fittings or whether you will simply make a few changes to improve the problem areas and deal with specific issues.
Light each room in accordance with use
Style matters, but you should predominantly light the room based on its usage. So, for example, if you’re enjoying a night playing video games, you need a subtle layered lighting system. This is especially important if you’re playing on a bright screen, which many modern video games use.
For instance, imagine you’ve come in from a long day at work, and you log into your favorite casino site to play some video poker – sounds relaxing, right? You’re pondering your dealt cards, wondering whether to fold or not, seemingly having fun and unwinding at the end of the day. However, too much glare on the screen can ruin the experience and strain your eyes, turning your game time from relaxing to bothersome.
As this great list here shows, playing this classic five-card draw game from the comfort of home is an entertaining pastime popular with gamers; however, you don’t want your eyes to suffer from straining or to develop a headache from the bright screen – and the same goes for any type of game you choose to play.
Know what the latest styles are
Spend some time looking through the latest catalogs from reputable suppliers and designers to ensure that you’re using the most appropriate style for the room and the overall design theme in the house. The base lighting should be evergreen so that it doesn’t need changing on a regular basis, while the standing lights, desk lights, and additional lighting aspects can be specific to a theme and changed from time to time to add points of interest and specific areas of additional lighting.
Use multi-directional spotlights
The use of spotlights to highlight an interior area in the home or a piece of art, feature wall, or design feature is a current trend that has taken off in interior design circles.
Use motion switches for entry and hallways
The worst thing in any building design is the inability to use the space at night if it has been left unlit. Ensure that you use motion switches to provide lighting at entry points and then also use floor-level lighting to show the way in hallways and stairways in the dark.
Minimalism works
Modern LED lighting trends allow you to keep any room simple and sophisticated, and no one needs to be able to see the lighting unless you want them to. No longer is the central hanging light in a room a mandatory design feature. You can keep all the lights hidden in recessed fittings and yet still have as much light as you need in the room.
Keep it interesting
There doesn’t have to be uniformity in modern lighting. Keep it interesting, and as long as you provide the right type of light for working areas of the home, such as the kitchen and above mirrors, you can also be creative in other spaces and use lampshades to enhance the room design and add artistic features. Have fun with your lighting.
Use dimmer switches
The ability to turn the light down and create different lighting in the room using the same set of lights is a highly efficient means of lighting and adds a certain suaveness to the room. The trend at the moment is to use electronic smart dimmer switches that can be controlled using your mobile device or that can be controlled by an integrated smart speaker.
Do the main lights first, then work around these
It will be great to use an overall lighting plan for the entire home, but even with such a plan, it will be best to do the main lighting first and then wait a while before adding to this. This will allow you to light the rooms or change the dominant source of lighting and then determine exactly what else is required, possibly adapting the plan in terms of brightness or positioning.