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Understanding the Basics of Home Lighting

Nov 1st 2019

Lighting a room can be intimidating, and lighting the whole house overwhelming especially for the inexperienced. Relax. You’re probably just overthinking things. Lighting doesn’t even have set rules, only guidelines. At the end of the day, only you can determine which type of lighting works best for you. Here are some tips to help you in your home lighting endeavor.

Size Does Matter

Step one should be taking into account the size of the room. Gone are the days where we just place a bulb in the middle of the room and we’re done. Today, lighting fixtures are not just a source of general lighting. Now we also use light fixtures for task lighting (focused illumination for our study area or work area) and accent lighting (spotlight illumination for highlighting objects). We also use lighting to manipulate the mood inside the room.

The size of the room helps determine the lumens output you should look for. For instance, a fixture with a 3,000-lumens output is usually just right for a room measuring 12 square meters. You should also measure the height of the ceiling so you can determine just how far from the ceiling the fixture needs to be hanging.

Changing Things Up

There are numerous routes you can take when finalizing your chose of home lighting. If your ceiling is significantly higher than normal, increasing the light level will likely be necessary. You can either choose a bulb with higher lumens output, use a fixture that contains more bulbs, or use a supplementing light such as a table lamp. The color of the room will also affect the required intensity of the light. Dark colors absorb light while light colors reflect it.

Go LED

Incandescents are expected to get totally phased out within the next 5 years. Many states have already outlawed their use because of how energy inefficient they are. Invest on LED lighting instead. LEDs can be up to over 90% more energy efficient and more than 10x longer lasting than incandescents. Some, like theLED 3 Watt Candelabra Dimmable Candle Light Bulb 2700K can even have their brightness changed from 10% to 100% quickly and easily. LED is the future of lighting. You can’t go wrong with LED.