Lighting : Fundamentals and Developing your Light

The use of lighting can transform your home adding atmosphere and personality. Poor lighting will grab attention, while good lighting will blend seamlessly into the surroundings. Used well, lighting will enhance your home, while bad lighting can nullify your efforts. Contrasting rooms will have different lighting requirements and require different levels of light. There is no right or wrong way to light a room, but it should be planned and consideration made for what the room is being used and what you would like to achieve or emphasise. There are three basic types of lighting at your disposal when lighting a room, Task, Ambient, and Accent. Some can be used individually, but combinations give the best results. Lighting combinations give flexibility and allow lighting levels to change according to our mood and the function of a room. Ambient Lighting helps to create a mood and feel for a room, this is usually the starting point for lighting any room. Task Lighting is focused in a small area and will help you to perform tasks, improve clarity, keeps you focused on the job at hand and prevents tiredness. Whilst Accent Lighting can be used to highlight features within a room such as pictures or objects and is usually restricted to one area. The use of good lighting within your home will welcome, relax and guide guests whilst being achievable and flexible to provide for every function at a flick of a switch.

Shades and shadows in a room are just as important as correct lighting. They give a room warmth and depth and give furnishings their texture and feel all of their own. Stark contrasts are difficult on the eyes and a careful balance is required that gives a comfortable and relaxing hue. Special features within a room can create shadows that can be accentuated with lighting, stair cases and unusual shaped rooms can be given character and uniqueness by selective placement of lightsources. These areas can be enhanced by using track lighting and wall washing. Lighting a single table or chair in a darkened room with a pendant is very dramatic and places the sole emphasis there, this can also be achieved over a dinner table when entertaining guests or for a romantic dinner for two. Floor standards will bounce light off the ceiling and wall washers will spread light across walls and will also produce good shadowing effects, with their light and a darkened room diverse and stimulating patterns can be created. If you have a dining table in a permanent position do not hang the light fitting over it too high. The ideal height is about 90cm from the surface of the table. This will give you a very intimate light, especially if the fitting is used with a dimmer. If you use a crystal chandelier the result is even better. The lampshades primary purpose is to reduce the glare from a lightsource and provide unobtrusive pools of light in particular areas of a room, whilst supplementing the overall ambient levels. There are many different styles and finishes of shade and with the development of halogen and energy saving lighting over the last few years a whole new range of materials and designs have come to the fore. Traditional fabric shades concentrate on the use of materials such as Silk, Satin or Cotton are made from stretching the material over a metal frame leaving a space of around 3cm between the fabric and light source to allow for heat dispersion. Frames are usually made from steel or copper with finished with nylon or resin coating to prevent rusting. These types of shade can be lined or unlined and are sometimes finished with stitching or gluing beads, ribbons or rope as a trimming. Hard fabric shades are made essentially from a fabric which has been laminated or backed with a stiff material such as card. This results in a straight sided, coolie or drum shade which are a little more contemporary because of their very clean lines and finishes. However hard shades do not last as long as they are difficult to clean but are cheaper than their soft shade counterparts. Glass shades are also available which vary in style and quality. The glass may have been moulded, blown or cut. The Glass may be clear, opal, coloured with traces of metal added to change colour and properties. There are hundreds of different styles of glass shade each having different types of finish, styles, light output and colour rendering. Paper shades have become very popular in recent years because they are lightweight, cheap and available in a huge amount of colours, shapes and sizes. They offer good diffused light, however they become brittle and the paper discolours after a relatively short period of time. The inner surfaces of shade may have reflective properties this has two effects, the light that is not transmitted by the shade material will be correctly reflected in the required direction and a reflective surface will not warm up as quickly and the lampshade will retain its shape and colour. When matching a shade to your lamp there are a few simple guidelines that you should follow. A general rule of thumb is that the diameter of the shade should be the same as the height of the lamp. However if you have a fat short lampbase the shade should be substantially wider than the base but not to unbalance the lamp. Also consider the maximum amount of light required from the lamp so you will not increase the wattage of the lamp above the maximum wattage of the shade.