Making Life Beautiful

When looking to redecorate or remodel your space, one of the key aspects to consider is the interior lighting design.  Great interior lighting design can provide a huge impact to the look and feel of your room, complementing the furnishings and accessories and pulling all the other elements together.

I recommend a layered lighting approach to add interest and to bring in different dimension.  To build your layered lighting design, firstly note the activities that occur in various parts of the room, then build the layered lighting plan using task lighting, accent and ambient lighting.  So what do we mean by task, accent and ambient lighting?

Task lighting  is used for activities such as reading, cooking and sewing.  It allows you to complete a task without straining your eyes or getting blinded by harsh light.  For example, reading requires task lighting that comes from behind the reader’s shoulder or reflects off the ceiling or wall.    The kitchen is particularly good place to incorporate task lighting in your interior design and with some great kitchen light fixtures available, you’ll be spoiled for choice.   You may also consider task lighting for bathroom to allow good interior lighting for applying make-up or for shaving.   Task lighting sources should be unobtrusive and sheilded to prevent glare.  When you combine task lighting with accent lighting, some beautiful effects can be achieved.

The accent lighting layer of your interior lighting design provides interest to a room.   Accent lighting highlights certain features or areas such as artwork, display niches and sculpture.  Spotlights, track lighting fixtures and opaquely shaded table lamps all provide accent lighting.  Whatever the feature you wish to highlight, with the use of accent lighting, the feature then creates a point of interest in the room.

This leads us to ambient lighting.  Ambient light is general ighting that provides overall illumination to the areas in use, and complements both task and accent lighting.  This lighting layer can be a hidden from view and provide a soft wash over the room.  Generally, with ambient lighting few shadows are cast and the room takes on a more flattened appearance.  Dimmer switches are often used to create the effect of ambient light.

It would be remiss not to mention the greatest light source, natural light.   When designing your room layout you can take advantage of the natural light that comes into the room.  What you do have to keep in mind though, is this light source is not static, and will change according to the weather and the time of year.  However, natural lighting can produce an effect unequalled by any artificial light source when used properly.

When purchasing kitchen lighting fixtures, track lighting fixtures or modern light fixtures, take time to select the ones that not only will be functionally suitable to your needs, but also reflect the style, look and feel to your home.  Maybe you opt for a more classic design as opposed to one that is hip and trendy, that way, if you change the interior style the lighting fixtures may not have to be changed.

Interior lighting design is a key element to the overall look and feel of our space, irrespective of the types of shades and fixtures you select.  Using a layered approach at once in a room allows you to turn any of them off, changing the look and feel instantly.  This can be effective for creating different moods at different times of the day, for example night time.

I thought I would share with you a short video I’ve put together showing the end result of a recent project.  The brief was to create a space that had clean lines, a contemporary look and feel which flowed through from the lounge to the dining and kitchen area.  A restricted colour pallette was used, predominantly black and white with accents of Aqua and Silver.   The wall behind the TV unit was painted in silver, using a special roller, to give the effect of wallpaper.  In the dining room, the focal point is the arch light, giving a beautiful pattern on the ceiling at night.  The kitchen optimises the space, with the breakfast bar also housing the microwave.  Waterfall ends on the breakfast bar turns this functional item into a piece of furntiure.