The Understated Role of Lighting for Interior Design
Furniture matters, as does paint, hardware, and flooring—but lighting is the unsung hero of interior design. Walking into a beautiful space, you might not notice the fixtures first, but the light they provide impacts how every other aspect of the space looks and feels.
Read on to explore the role of lighting in interior design, and for expert tips on designing your home’s lighting.
What Lighting Can Do for a Room
Put simply, well-designed lighting makes a room better suited for its purposes and more aesthetically pleasing. This is achieved in a number of ways, including:
- Setting the mood, not only through the kind of light the fixtures cast, but also through the appearance of the fixtures themselves.
- Providing ambient light, making the entire space visible, welcoming, and easy to navigate.
- Providing task lighting for areas dedicated to certain activities, from reading and writing to cooking, laundry, and board games.
- Providing accent lighting, highlighting artwork, photography, and other points of visual interest.
- Creating visual interest, giving a room focal points and texture.
- Influencing the perception of space, making larger rooms seem more intimate and smaller rooms seem more open.
Naturally no single light fixture should be expected to do all of this. Effective lighting design means intentionally combining various light sources, from lamps and chandeliers to lanterns and skylights.
Now that we’ve covered what you can achieve with lighting, read on for tips on how to achieve it.
10 Interior Lighting Design Techniques for Achieving Your Desired Aesthetic
1. Leverage Multifunctionality
Watch for opportunities for light sources to serve multiple purposes. For example, a chandelier over a dining room table might provide task lighting for dining, contribute to general illumination, and serve as an aesthetic statement piece. By the same token, a lantern can make an entryway more welcoming and easier to navigate, while also providing task lighting for finding your keys, putting on your coat, and checking your appearance in a wall mirror before going out.
2. Take Inspiration From Your Decor
Whether you’re designing light for a bathroom, bedroom, living room, or kitchen, let the established aesthetic of that space inform your lighting choices. Choose fixtures that complement the style of the room.
3. Layer your lighting
Create a balanced and welcoming atmosphere by using all three layers of light: ambient lighting, task lighting, and accent lighting. For example, pendants over the kitchen island can provide focused light for cooking and cleaning, recessed ceiling lights can help with general illumination, and picture lights can draw the eye toward art on the wall.
4. Make your lighting adjustable
Consider dimmer switches and dimmable bulbs, so that you can adjust the intensity of light based on the mode the room needs to be in. For example, a kitchen needs to be a productive space while getting dinner ready, and then a more relaxed space once the guests arrive. Along the same lines, a bedroom needs lots of light while you’re getting dressed for the day, but then softer light while you’re reading before bed.
5. Incorporate smart lighting solutions
Smart lighting allows you to control your home's lighting remotely through smartphone apps, voice commands, or automation systems, enhancing convenience and energy efficiency.
6. Be intentional about color temperature
Choose bulbs that provide the best color temperature for the mood you want to set. Warm white light, for example, contributes to a cozy environment, while cooler whites help bring energy and focus.
7. Maximize natural light
Natural light contributes to our wellbeing, makes spaces feel more vibrant and open, and draws out the colors of a room’s decor. In short, no fixture can compete with sunlight. Consider hanging wall mirrors to reflect windows, glass doors, or skylights. Also take note of how much daylight gets in at various times of day, and design your lighting to leverage that light as much as possible.
8. Opt for efficient bulbs
To reduce your power bill and carbon footprint, consider LED bulbs, which use less energy and last longer than traditional incandescent bulbs. LEDs come in a variety of colors and can be dimmable, giving you greater flexibility as you design your lighting.
9. Incorporate smart lighting
Smart lighting allows you to control your home's lighting remotely through smartphone apps, voice commands, or automation systems. This enhances your energy efficiency while making it easier to adapt any room’s atmosphere to suit various modes and moods.
10. Listen to the room
Any room in your home has a lot to say about the kind of lighting it needs. To glean those insights, ask and answer questions like:
What are the room’s dimensions?
First, measure the length and width of the room. Start in one corner and work your way around. (For accuracy, measure at least twice.) Then, measure your ceiling height (at least twice). All of these measurements will help you narrow down your list of possible fixtures.
For example, by adding the length and width of a room together, you discover a good diameter (in inches) for a ceiling light. For example, if a room is 16 feet wide and 18 feet long, you might want to look for ceiling fixtures with a diameter of about 34 inches.
But how high or low should that fixture hang? Your ceiling height will help you there. If your ceiling is less than eight feet high, consider a flush or semi-flush mount, which saves space while providing ample light. Hanging fixtures are usually best for ceilings at or above eight feet, and you want at least seven feet of clearance between the bottom of the fixture and the floor.
That said, for every foot of ceiling height above 8 feet, you can add 2-3 inches to your fixture’s hanging height. For example, with an 11-foot-high ceiling, a good hanging range would be 7 feet and 6-9 inches above your floor.
What is the room’s purpose?
The answer to this question is usually more complicated than one might guess.
For example, a bedroom is of course meant for sleeping, but it’s also where studying, reading, dressing, grooming, and unwinding all happen. By noting all the predictable functions of a room, you can determine the kind of lighting it will need. That bedroom might call for a chandelier for nicely diffused ambient lighting, wall sconces on either side of a mirror for grooming, and a table lamp on the nightstand for bedtime reading.
By thinking about the various functions of a room, you can identify the various kinds of lighting it will need.
Ready to Start Designing?
Lighting has a powerful impact on the look and feel of any room. That’s why Visual Comfort & Co. offers a wide range of light fixtures and lamps, so that you can unleash your creativity and achieve your aesthetic goals. Start your lighting design journey right here.