Lighting can make a difference in the interior environment of your home.
Good lighting helps us to see better and perform tasks more easily. It also provides safety, security and a sense of comfort. Lighting and lighting controls also provide us with the flexibility to adjust and adapt the mood and ambience of our homes.
Lighting fixtures are an ideal accessory to supplement the interior decor of your house. With an unlimited range of styles, shapes, colours annd sizes, lighting fixtures can provide the finishing touch to a comprehensive interior design scheme. They add the sparkle to our homes in the same way that jewlery adds sparkle to our bodies.
Determing Your Needs:
Lighting should be planned to complement your lifestyle. To accomplish a comprehensive and successful lighting solution, it is best to develope a home lighting plan that meets your individual needs and those of your family.
- * Identify the activities that occur in each room (reading, food preparation, hobby work, grooming, laundry, homework, etc.
- * Identify the mood or ambience that you want to create.
- * Identify the decorative elements you wish to emphasize.
- * Keep in mind that dark colours absorb much light, and therefore it is necessary to
- * When remodeling, it is important to note the extent of the remodeling
- * Also, identify those areas serving more than a single purpose that will require more than one type of lighting.
provide supplementary light in spaces with dark wall colours and finishes.
and identify the existing electrical locations.
There are three basic types of lighting that work together in your home:
- * Ambient (general lighting)
- * Task
- * Accent
- A good lighting plan combines all three types to light an area according to function and style.
AMBIENT LIGHTING:
Provides an area with overall illumination. Also known as general lighting, it radiates a comfortable level of brightness without glare and allows you to see and walk about safely. In some spaces such as laundry rooms, the ambient lighting also serves as the primary source of task lighting.
It can also be accomplished with chandeliers, ceiling or wall-mounted fixtures, recessed or track lights, and with lanterns mounted on the outside of the home. Having a central source of ambient light in all rooms is fundemental to a good lighting plan.
TASK LIGHTING:
This helps you perform specific tasks such as reading, grooming, preparing and cooking food, doing homework, working on hobbies, playing games or balancing your checkbook. It can be provided by recessed and track lighting, pendant lighting and under cabinet lighting, as well as by portable floor and desk lamps. Task lighting should be free of distracting glare, and shadows and should be bright enough to prevent eyestrain.
ACCENT LIGHTING:
This adds drama to a room by creating visual interest. As part of an interior design scheme, it is used to focus interest on houseplants, paintings, sculpture and other prized possessions. It also can be used to highlight the texture of a brick or stone wall, window treatments or outdoor landscaping. To be effective, acccent lighting requires at least three times as much light on the focal point as the general lighting surrounding it. Accent lighting is usually privided by track, recessed or wall mounted fixtures also known as picture lights.
If you need assistance with your plan, a lighting specialist at the KAMLOOPS LAMPOST will be happy to help.
