Easy Lighting Tips to Enhance Any Room in Your Home

When it’s time to redecorate a space in your home, you’ll likely spend most of your time searching for the perfect furniture, color scheme, and accessories to bring your vision to life, but what about light fixtures? Whether you’re striving to create a sophisticated study or a rustic dining room, investing in the appropriate lighting is crucial. A few simple lighting techniques can make a huge difference in getting the most of out of your home’s functionality and ambiance. With these practical tips from your local Ashley Homestore, you can create a stylish, well-lit home in no time.

Create a Plan

Shopping for light fixtures to enhance a space in your home can be a lot of fun, but it also requires thoughtful planning. Rather than picking a floor lamp or chandelier purely based on their aesthetics, it’s important to consider your room’s particular needs. What activities will take place in this room? What atmosphere are you striving to portray? Are there any areas of the space that you would like to draw attention to, such as a fireplace or bookcase? Once you’ve answered these basic questions, write your answers down. This will help you stay focused when you browse lighting options online or visit the furniture store. Additionally, it will help the store’s salesperson find pieces to meet your requests.

Layer Lights like a Pro

The secret to designing a room that looks like it was styled by a professional interior designer is to layer its light sources appropriately. What does this mean exactly? Utilizing different sources of light based on their abilities and your goals for the room will prevent the space from feeling one-dimensional, dreary, or stark. Creating a well-balanced room that is both functional and beautiful is as simple as incorporating the three basic types of lighting: ambient, task, and accent.

Ambient

This type of lighting usually comes from the ceiling and provides overhead light that illuminates the entire room. Its primary purpose is to create bright, even light equally over a space. While ambient lighting is ideal for rooms that lack natural light or need to be well-lit to perform certain functions, such as bathrooms or kitchens, using it as the sole light source could be overwhelming for constant use. Rather, ambient lighting should be thought of as the base on which other light sources can be built to add warmth and character.

Task

The purpose of this type of light source is revealed in its name: to help people accomplish particular tasks. Task lighting includes table lamps, floor lamps, and track lights that make daily living in the room easier. For instance, task lighting can often be found under kitchen cabinets to aid in preparing food, in living rooms and bedrooms for reading, and on office desks to brighten work spaces.

Accent

Lights that are used to highlight a particular feature of a space are called accent lights. These include wall sconces, spotlights, and recessed lighting. Their specific purpose is to draw one’s eye to a focal point in the room, such as a piece of artwork, plant, or bookshelf. Accent lighting is the finishing touch that makes a room feel dramatic and pulled together.

In most rooms, its best to choose ambient lighting as the foundation of the space, then incorporate task and accent lights based on the needs of the room. However, in rooms designated for one primary function, choosing task or accent lights first makes more sense. For example, selecting the right desk lamp for an office or task lights for a vanity may be more important than choosing the general lighting in your office or bathroom. The important thing to remember in any room you’re decorating is that the light should be practical and attractive. What’s the bottom line? By layering your light sources, you can ensure your room exudes effortless style and warmth.

Select the Right Bulbs

Like the lighting you choose for the rooms in your home, selecting the right light bulbs is an essential step in creating the ambiance you desire in your home. When deciding which light bulb to purchase for your lamps and fixtures, you should first consider the purpose and atmosphere you are trying to establish. For example, bright lights are best for overhead ambient light, table lamps used for reading, and accent lights intended to highlight a focal point in the room. On the other hand, softer lights are more appropriate for spaces intended to be warm and intimate, such as dining rooms and bedrooms. With a wide variety of colors, brightness levels, and sizes in stores today, it’s important that you choose the best style to accomplish your goals for each room in your home.

Make the Most of Natural Light

While thoughtfully planning, layering light sources, and choosing the right bulbs can certainly help any room in your home feel well-balanced, the importance of natural light shouldn’t be overlooked. Natural light streaming through a window, no matter its size, can make a tremendous difference in helping the room feel bigger, brighter, and more open. With this in mind, it’s wise to utilize natural light whenever possible. If the space is small or only has one window, make the most of the limited sunlight it has access to by choosing simple window treatments, not blocking it with bulky furniture, and positioning mirrors on the opposite wall to redistribute light that makes its way in.

Incorporate Your Personality

Along with the furniture and accessories you choose to put in your home, the lighting options you use should be a reflection of your unique taste and lifestyle. Illuminating your room doesn’t have to be boring or ordinary. Have fun with the light fixtures you choose to keep any space in your home visually appealing. A great place to start is replacing the standard light fixtures that came with your home with ones that are more in line with your personal style.

For more tips on elevating any room in your home with the right lighting, the design experts at Ashley Homestore are here to help. Visit our showroom today or give us a call to see how fun redesigning you home can be!