Home Lighting

Whether you are building a new home and need to design the lighting for your entire home, or would just like to update some areas of the home, you will find that making decisions regarding your home lighting can be a difficult task. First of all you want to be sure that the lights in your home do not cause a high electrical bill, however you still want the lights to be beautiful and effective in your home. Fortunately for you all of those things are possible with some research and some willingness to shop around.

Energy Efficiency Lighting Design

For low-energy consumption, the best choices you can make in regards to your home lighting are:

Energy Star rated light fixtures
Substitute compact fluorescent lights for incandescent fixtures and bulbs.
Dimmer switches
Motion detectors
Ceiling fans (Learn more)

Good lighting can create exciting moods, and help maximize the successful performance of daily living tasks and activities while helping to create a beautiful energy-efficient home. Lear more by visiting Smart Livable Homes.

Beautiful and Effective Home Lighting

Beautiful lighting arrangements can really set the tone of a room and of your entire home. You also want to consider how the lighting will be used, for what purpose, and how you want it to make you feel when enter a room. Lighting is threefold- task orientation, comfort, and security, therefore when planning for lighting in your home, first think about the activities taking place in that space and the look and style you want to achieve.

Recessed and Track Lighting

Uniform down lighting provides a layer of ambient light typically for general lighting.
Non-Uniform down lighting provides a more interesting appearance as the lights are typically separated enough so that the beams do not overlap.
Task lighting requires good placement of light to avoid shadows. You also want to avoid direct down lights in office type environments to avoid glare.
Decorate pendants provide both function and interest and are primarily used over countertops and/or tables.
Accent lighting creates direct light on specific subjects like artwork or architectural details. Angling the light appropriately is extremely important to avoid glare and shadows as well as to accentuate the piece well.
Wall lighting can impact the perception of space making a room brighter and can add visual interest. Techniques such as washing, where diffuse illumination flattens out textured surfaces, or grazing, where by placing down lights close to wall creates a grazing affect on textured surfaces, or using light scallops which can add visual interest to any space.

For more Track Lighting details, see our Track Lighting Design Guide.

Outdoor/Exterior Lighting Design

See our Outdoor Lighting Design Guide.

Bathroom Lighting Design

Learn more about specific lighting design for your bathrooms.

Kitchen Lighting Design

See our Kitchen Lighting Design ideas here.

More Home Lighting Design ideas from these websites

Also remember, if you need to convert an old light fixture to accommodate something new, The Can Converter can help. See how easy they are to install.

See our Kitchen Lighting Design ideas here.