Interior Home Lighting

Home Lighting

Home lighting is a critical element in home interior decorating. The lighting that you choose will be instrumental in setting the mood, affect the functionality of your space, and have an impact on the security of your home. As you consider the various lighting options for your new home, be sure to consider how each room will be used and the tone you want to set. Energy efficiency and fixture cost may also play a part in your home lighting decisions.

Depending on where your natural abilities lie, designing your lighting scheme and then picking out the fixtures that set just the right tone can be exciting and fun. Or, if you're like me, it can be the hardest part of building a house!

For a good source of reasonably priced fixtures and for help with the design aspects of your lighting plan, visit this Home Lighting website. With over 15 years of experience in the construction and design industries, CTS Lighting provides a knowledgeable resource for your custom project.

There are four primary types of lighting that you can utilize in your lighting design: natural, task, ambient, and accent.

Natural Home Lighting

Natural lighting comes into your home through windows, doors, and skylights. The orientation of your house to the sun will greatly impact the amount of natural light you will enjoy, so consider your floor plan carefully at various times of the day so that you can gain the greatest benefit from it.

You may find that you need to add sun filtering shades at times for some rooms, or that other rooms will require more artificial light to provide the right atmosphere.

Task Lighting

Task lighting is simply making sure that you will have sufficient light in any given area to help you perform the tasks for that area. The areas where task lighting is most commonly necessary is usually the kitchen, bathing and grooming areas, or areas where reading/studying take place.

Examples of fixtures that provide task lighting are:

Under cabinet lights
Pendants
Portable light fixtures
Over-head lighting, recessed or surface mounted

Ambient Home Lighting

Ambient or general home lighting illuminates an entire space or whole room. It is a generally a good idea to install dimmer switches with this type of lighting so that you can control the feel of the room and adjust it for different situations.

Examples of fixtures that provide ambient lighting are:

Chandeliers
Recessed light fixtures
Track lights
Sconces
Wall/Ceiling surface mounted fixtures

Accent Home Lighting

Accent lighting design, while not necessary to the functionality of your home, can have a wonderful impact on hightlighting the features of your home that you love. This focused lighting is used to illuminate any area/object in your home that you want to draw attention to: art, sculptures, bookcases, recessed areas, or an element of your home that is of architectural interest.

Accent lighting can be a soft wash of light over an object, or a sharper more focused affect ~ as long as the accent lighting is brighter than the ambient lighting in the area so that it stands out.

Examples of accent lighting are:

Recessed downlights that can be adjusted
Under cabinet/shelving lights
Wall-mounted fixtures