How to: Home lighting design that makes spaces spectacular

Lighting is one of the more crucial aspects of interior design as it can make or break your design. 

You can easily screw up your interior lighting, a wrong spotlighting over the dinner table could make you hate yourself for life as you eat your dinner with a direct extremely bright light over your head. 

However lighting design is not hard if you follow a few guidelines regarding effective lighting, so without ado let me start on how to: lighting. :)

Rule 1, types of lighting

Before starting out on lighting design, you do need to  understand the what, where and why of lighting.  

So to start off, what are the different types of lighting fixtures?

1. General lighting

General lighting, like its name of the category, is a form of lighting used to light up the whole room. 

Its like a light blanket that covers the space, might be good for none essential task or daily activities, but not so much for specific & concentrated task. 

When varied in terms of colour choice (e.g cool white to warm yellow), this form of lighting also set a certain kind of atmosphere in the room which may be able to enhance the ambiance of the room.

Examples of usage: living room, bedroom, kitchen, dining room, anywhere you can thinking of simply because it can light up a room for general viewing.

Examples of lighting: Cove lighting, Strip lighting, Ceiling mounted lighting, chandelier.

2.Task lighting

Task lighting is designed to improve the lighting conditions of an area when performing a certain type of task, for example cooking or studying.

 This types of lighting allows a space to be lit up to allow for brighter workspace as well as create emphasis on working space. 

Although it is lighting for getting work done, try to use the task lighting sparingly. You wouldn’t want your life to be revolved around work right? Similarly don't let your home revolve around task lighting as well. 

Examples of usage: Study table, under ceiling kitchen cabinates, walkways

Examples of lighting: Recessed downlight, Line bar lighting as well as desk / floor directional lamps.

3. Spotlighting

Spotlighting is the little brother of the group due to it being the least used and last to be considered, however, it is still an extremely important factor within your lighting design. 

It is in charge of making your design POP and create that wow factor as its main role is to create highlights within a space. 

Remember how insects during the night tend to flock around street lamps? That is how your spotlighting is going to treat your space. 

By having several spotlighting designed at areas like your favourite paintings or sculptures & pictures, you are able to create emphasis on such items and make those items determine the personality of the space.

Examples of usage: Pictures, art pieces, TVs, Kitchen, model shelves. 

Examples of lighting: Wall hung lights, ceiling mounted spot lighting

Rule 2, Placement of lighting

Now for different types of lighting, there will definitely be different kinds of lighting placement. So then, how can one go about in their lighting design?

Well to start off, you have to think of your lighting design like a painting. 

Lighting is more than simply having specific lights at specific locations, It is about having the having it in layers overlapping and creating lighting vibrancy. 

Through the usage of different kinds of lighting (1 general lighting, 3 task lighting, & 1-2 spotlighting) it will allow your room to adapt to your lifestyle. 

Want to have a friends hangout session? On that general lighting & spotlighting, create emphasis on the character of the space! 

Want a more intimate session with yourself? With a glass of red wine and a good book on the hand to read while seating on the couch? On that simple task lighting beside your seat, and enjoy the rest of the night with some alone time.

Lighting is also of course about the shadow, many people only concern themselves with the light design and how the light is produced, but often forget about the shadow created by it too. Be cautious, place lighting that will remove the unnecessary shadows. However, you do not need to be really worried about this portion as a simple google search can go a long way. 

A rule of thumb is to either have overlapping light sources or lighting that have a big lighting spread in areas where you are unsure about where to put your lighting.

Rule 3, Cost of lighting

There is actually a lot of cost for lighting to work properly, from an electrician to purchase of the types of lighting fixtures, to purchasing the switches and (if you want a smart home) sensors and automation products. 

All these add up to quite a bit, from 2k to 5k easily in a 5 room apartment, so do do your purchases and calculation wisely so that you won’t burst your budget. 

I would suggest you to buy most of your lighting fixture online as they tend to be 50% to 60% and even 75% cheaper than the typical brick and mortar stores you’ll find in your neighbourhood. 

Without the typical in-store markup price, they can easily cut down your spending by a lot without compromising on the quality of the products. As physical retail shops need to pay for that overhead cost of renting and storing of products, the cost will usually be transferred to the customer hence, explaining the higher price of the products. 

So do try to make your purchases online, trust me, you will feel like you’ve just found a cheat code in life.

Do remember to subscribe and share if you found that this is useful, and do comment if you have any questions, hope you will have a nice design journey.  :)