18 Apr 5 Worst Home-Lighting Faux Pas

Do you have any of these in your home? Read on for suggestions…

1)      The Dungeon

There’s nothing like a little mood lighting to make an evening with friends more intimate… but if the only light in your room is a single dim fixture, you will leave your guests feeling more like inmates. Keeping your lighting in balance between blaring and boring will provide the warm and inviting atmosphere you are trying to create.

Brighten Up:

Instead of leaving them squinting, add some light and some character to the austerity with a some alternative lighting options. Table and floor lamps are great options if you are in between renovations and do not want to add any new permanent fixtures. If you are more adventurous adding some more ceiling options can really highlight the parts of the room that you are trying to accent. Lighting is as important as your accent wall or throw pillows, make sure you’re putting your best foot forward.

Turn the cell into a salon

2)      The Stadium

The first problem was too little light, this next faux-pas is a case of too much. No one wants to be shielding their eyes as they are trying to have a pleasant conversation or meal. Game day is great, but your carpet is not astroturf (if it is… we have other things to talk about) and your guests aren’t wearing helmets. Let’s lighten the atmosphere by dimming the lights.

Simmer Down:

Switching out the sever angles and the harsh lighting with some softer and warmer options. This can be as simple as switching out bulbs: halogen bulbs tend to be cooler than the classic glass bulbs you grew up with (though there are energy savings to take into account with keeping the halogens). If you have recessed lighting you can change the angle that the lights are facing, possibly to point at important aspects of your room. Finally, you can instal a dimmer, or add some plug-in options to switch between high lighting and mood lighting.

3)  The Treehouse

Natural light is gorgeous, you can’t get enough of it… but that’s the problem- you can’t get enough of it. If you’re in an apartment or house with small windows or no built-in fixtures (who ever thought of designing a home that way anyway?), you need to take your home’s lighting into your own hands. Make your home a brilliant place to live regardless of the weather outside.

Spruce it Up:

If you do not want to spend a ton on wiring new fixed lighting sources and depending on the feel you are trying to accomplish- rustic or  modern- augmenting the natural lighting in the room can really enhance the room’s visibility and feel. For the more rustic feel, look for practicality; where do you need more light? As an example, having a reading lamp near your favorite wingback chair or on the desk will both add functionality and can act as their own decorating pieces to match your mood. Modern decorating tends to need selective lighting of areas of the room or aspects of the design and so more strategic placing of lamps and the like can accent without overpowering. If your room has many available outlets then you can switch it up to see which arrangement works best for you. You can even add a few different options to shake it up. If you want to maintain that natural lighting feel, choose hues of light and designs of lamps that augment your style.

4)    The Haunted House

The title speaks for itself. If the room is creepy, you need to do something about it. Sometimes you inherit the poor design choices of your predecessors, or had an idea that went awry; regardless of how it happened, there are a few options to turn the crypt into a comfy cove.

Exhume your room:

In this instance some painting or light redecorating would probably be worth the expense. Adding more light might lower the creepiness factor, but fixing the root cause will make all your lighting improvements significantly more effective. To lighten it up a bight try bouncing some colored light off your voodoo dolls (just kidding, but if you have those the room may not be the issue). There are more options in lighting than “warmer” or “cooler” try having some fun with how the colors interact with the walls and furniture for a happier, less macabre effect.

5)    The Control Room

There are now more sources of light in a room than just the fixtures and lamps: our devices, consoles, and screens all have lights that can pull unwanted focus or, in low lighting situations, turn your room turn into the command center of a nuclear submarine. When you want to sleep or watch a movie in the dark, sometimes removing light is as hard as adding it.

Flick the Switch:

For sleeping purposes blackout curtains are always an excellent investment; for the rest of your light obscuring there are a few solutions. First, if there are objects like modems, power bars, or other unimportant sources of little lights try putting them in places that are easy to hide, but are not too hard to get to if you need them; this helps with decorating in general as well, but be sure that they are in fire-safe locations that will not allow them to build up too much heat. Next, if that isn’t possible, you might try simply covering the light itself with a small piece of tape or the like, against that is easy to remove if you or the computer maintenance person needs to see it. As for more useful or common like thermostats or electronics, most have a dimmer setting that you can set to the lowest setting when it is not in use. More ambient lighting in the room from your preferred lighting sources will diminish the glaring nature of these pesky pinpricks of light, but when you want it to get darker, you need to be proactive.

In closing,

We hope our suggestions were interesting, informative, and useful to you and your decorating aspirations. We hope that these little light changes will brighten your living spaces so that they can in turn improve your life.