Discover How to Use Lights and Lighting to Enhance Your Room
Or Disguise it's Faults.

All about lights and lighting...

Read my great tips and ideas for using lights and lighting in your interior design and home decorating schemes.

Make sure your lighting choices are practical - and achieve the desired mood and effect!

• Think about what activities happen in the room - reading? craftwork? homework? preparing food? shaving? applying make-up?


• All these will need a bright light - so as not to cause eyestrain - and to see what you are doing.


• This is called Task lighting - lighting for a specific task. Think about how you can light up this specific area - a desk lamp? standard lamp? table lamp? reading lamp? wall light? a vanity lamp over a mirror? spotlights? recessed ceiling lights?


• Task lighting is usually best if it is adjustable - that way the angle can be positioned to get the best light for the task.

• The general lighting level in the room is called the overall lighting.


• This may come from natural light from the windows in the daytime - perhaps it is too bright at times? particularly when watching TV? - consider blinds, or attractive net curtains, or sweeping voiles.


• In the evening, the overall lighting may come from a central light fixture. Try to make a decorative feature of it - and make sure it fits with the room's overall style.


• Choose between a simple pendant light bulb with an attractive lampshade - (which may well be your cheapest option) - chandeliers, large or small, traditional or modern, in glass, metal, plastic or wood. Or, spotlights or downlighters, fixed or recessed in the ceiling, singly or on tracks - which give a more modern, streamlined feel.


• Consider whether the lighting needs a dimmer switch to create a more cosy or romantic feel - mood lighting.

• You can also achieve mood lighting with wall lights, table lamps, standard lamps - or even fairy lights and candles - my personal favourites. This is where you can really use your imagination and creativity - to use the lights and lighting in your room to create lots of different moods and sensations.


• I love sitting in my living room, lit only by deliciously scented candles - (vanilla is my favourite scent - I find it works really well as a cosy, evening scent.)


• I also like white or colored fairy lights, and my two fantastic rock crystal lamps. The rock crystal lamps give off a lovely, warm orange, cosy glow - almost as good as a real fire! One lamp is a 'natural' rock shape, and the other a perfect sphere. The sphere shows up all the beautiful patterns and grains in the rock - and when it glows red and orange it looks just like a beautiful planet.


• It makes me feel really relaxed, tranquil and cosy - and I think that's just what you want from your living room on an evening - and all achieved only through clever use of lights and lighting.

• As well as mood lighting, to enhance and inspire your mood, you can choose accent lights.


• Accent lighting highlights certain features of a room, or special objects.


• Show off your lovely new curtains by fitting concealed lighting behind a pelmet.


• Or use concealed lighting in a glass display cabinet - to illuminate a collection, or feature objects.


• Use accent lights and lighting to highlight a special picture or framed photo. If you want to do this - use lights on the wall above the pictures - or fit an adjustable ceiling light or spotlight. Make sure you fit the picture you want to highlight, with special non-reflective glass - which you can get at picture framers - or the whole effect will be lost in a mass of glare and reflections.

Use Lighting to Change your Room Proportions

• You can also use lights and lighting to change the proportions of the room.


• You can make dark or small rooms feel bigger and lighter by using lighting which points upwards - or uplighters. Use these to highlight a bright white ceiling.


• Also try bouncing the light, from a light fixture or window, around the room - place a large mirror opposite the window, or to catch the light from a ceiling light, table light or candle.


• Light bouncing around a room full of lots of pale and glossy surfaces, can also make a small or dark room feel lighter and larger.


• If your room has high ceilings, and always feels empty and imposing - try using downlighters - and bring back some of that cosy atmosphere - darker colors, and lots of texture can help here, too.


• Try brightening up a dark and dingy corner with a lamp - and just see the difference that it makes. I really like to position an attractive plant, with lots of interesting foliage, right in front of a lamp in the corner. The effect of illuminating the plant is really quite dramatic - and it casts lots of interesting patterns around the room.

They have a fantastic range of good quality lighting - and some really gorgeous lights - in unusual styles and designs that I have definitely not seen on the High Street.

There are always loads of good discounts, and the site gives lots of details and information about the lights, including dimensions.

That way you can be sure of what you are getting. Have a browse now - and you will really see what an impact really good, unique lighting, chosen with your whole design scheme in mind, can make to your room. Find the best-selling lighting, fans, and accessories and more at Lumens.com. Free shipping with $50 order.

Check out the interior decorating information section on room proportion to discover more ways to cope with decorating in small spaces, or large rooms, or awkward shaped rooms.

You may want to consider the lights and lighting you choose, when you think about the colors you pick for your interior design scheme.

Yes, even your choice of lights and interior lighting fixtures can make a difference here - and it doesn't just make a difference to the colors in your room - Discover how your choice of lights and interior lighting fixtures can affect your finances - and help to save the world! (yes, really)

Or look at my room-by-room guide for more home lighting ideas for each and every room.

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