Lighting is the part of a room people decide last and notice most. You can get the furniture, the paint and the floor right, and the room will still feel wrong if the light is wrong. This guide covers the basics: how to layer light, how to get scale right, and the handful of mistakes that are easy to make and expensive to undo.
Start with three layers, not one fixture
Almost every room that feels good is lit by more than one source. There are three layers worth thinking about.
Ambient light is the general wash that lets you move around the room. A ceiling light or a flush mount usually does this job. On its own it is flat and unflattering, which is why a single downlight in the middle of a ceiling makes a room feel like an office.
Task light is aimed at something you are doing: reading in bed, chopping on a bench, working at a desk. A bedside sconce or a pendant over an island is task light.
Accent light is the one people skip, and it is the one that makes a room feel finished. It picks out a texture, a plant, a piece of art or the corner of a room, and it gives your eye somewhere to rest.
Get two of the three into a room and it will already feel considered. Get all three and it will feel designed.
Getting the size right
Scale is where most people come unstuck, and it is the single most common reason a light gets sent back.
For a main pendant in a room, a rough starting point: add the room's width and length in metres, then use that number in inches as a diameter. A 4m by 5m room gives you 9, so a pendant around 22 to 25cm across. It is only a starting point, but it stops you buying something far too small, which is the usual error.
Over a dining table, aim for a fixture roughly one third to one half the width of the table. Over an island, two or three smaller pendants usually read better than one large one.
Before you order anything, cut the shape out of paper or cardboard and hold it up in the space. It takes two minutes and it is more reliable than any rule.
Getting the height right
Over a dining table or a kitchen island, leave roughly 75 to 90cm between the bottom of the shade and the surface. Lower feels intimate, higher feels formal, and much outside that range starts to feel like a mistake.
In a walkway or entry, keep the bottom of the shade above head height, around 2.1m from the floor.
Beside a bed, mount a wall light so the bottom of the shade sits a little above shoulder height when you are sitting up, usually 90cm to 1.1m above the mattress.
Most pendants have an adjustable cord or rod, so there is room to fine tune once it is up. Ask your electrician to leave it long and set the final height with the room furnished.
Warm or cool light
Colour temperature is measured in kelvin, and it changes the feel of a room more than almost anything else.
Around 2700K is warm and yellow, and suits living rooms, bedrooms and dining rooms. Around 3000K is slightly crisper and works well in kitchens and bathrooms. Anything above 4000K reads as cold and blue, and belongs in a garage or a workshop rather than a home.
The one rule worth following: keep the temperature consistent within a room, and ideally across a whole floor. Mixing warm and cool globes in one space is jarring even when you cannot say why.
Dimming
A dimmable light is a different light at 8pm than it is at 8am, and it is usually worth the extra step. Two things have to line up: the fixture has to be dimmable, and the dimmer in your wall has to suit the driver in that fixture.
The specification table on every product page says whether a piece is dimmable. If dimming matters to you, show that page to your electrician before you order.
Five mistakes worth avoiding
Buying too small. A fixture that looks generous in a photograph often disappears in a real room. When you are between two sizes, go up.
Lighting a room from one point. A single central fixture flattens everything under it. Add a second source at a different height.
Mixing colour temperatures. Warm in one lamp and cool in the next makes a room feel unresolved.
Forgetting the switch. Work out how a light will be turned on before you buy it. A beautiful sconce with no accessible switch is a daily irritation.
Leaving lighting until last. Wiring is decided early in a build or renovation. Choosing fixtures before the electrician runs the cable gives you far more freedom than choosing after.
Still not sure?
If you are weighing up two options, or you are not certain how a piece will sit in your room, get in touch before you order. That conversation usually saves a return.
And if something does arrive and it is not right, the 30 day money back guarantee covers you. Browse the range in indoor lighting.
Leave a comment
This site is protected by hCaptcha and the hCaptcha Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.