I am overwhelmed: Shedding Light on Light Plans—A 4 Step Plan to Illuminate your Custom Home
Lighting: it’s one of the most important and often the most overlooked elements of home design.
Lighting is jewelry to a room. When well done—it pops. Quality lighting can set you at ease, lend a unique character to a room, and give you a sense of the person who inhabits the space.
EDUCATION
Lighting: it’s one of the most important and often the most overlooked elements of home design.
Lighting is jewelry to a room. When well done—it pops. Quality lighting can set you at ease, lend a unique character to a room, and give you a sense of the person who inhabits the space.
Quality lighting happens when we manipulate light sources to compensate for the lack of natural light. Simple.
But, how do you get there? How do you create a functional and stylish lighting decor in your home’s interior or exterior space and make every purchase count?
A plan. Your lighting plan will become as important as any flush mount or chandelier.
The Plan
What’s your objective?
The first and most critical part of the plan is to ask yourself: why do I want to change the lighting in a particular space?
There’s no right or wrong answer here. Are you bored with the old look? Perhaps you need extra light to apply your makeup so want to improve the illumination in the master bathroom.
Maybe the seasons are changing and the natural light is shifting, so your lighting needs to as well.
This is a fun, DISCOVERY phase to understand your motivation for change, and to understand why you’re investing time and resources into this residential decor project. This step will provide a baseline to know the direction of your new lighting arrangement.
Set Boundaries.
Decide where you want to change the lighting, and don’t.
Most home projects become difficult and laborious because we say we want to change the living room lighting, but half way through the project we realize those changes affect the kitchen lighting. So take spaces into consideration, not just rooms. This lets you light your side of the bed that allows you to work while your partner sleeps.
And don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you have to double your budget, you just have to know the lighting boundaries.
The opposite is also true. If your boundary is the kitchen countertop, sticking to that space will prevent you from rewiring your entire kitchen.
Trust me. Be real about your objectives and boundaries during the planning stage to save time, energy, and money in the long run.
A sketch of your plan is also imperative at this point. You don’t have to be an artist, but it’s necessary to visualize precisely where you want that task light to hit because this will affect where you wire.
Take stock!
What natural and sourced light do you already have? Make a list of light sources, including natural, that you have within your set boundaries. Where and when does natural light enter into the space? What permanent and moveable light fixtures exist within your boundary?
Knowing this, you can limit your purchases to what you need and leave the rest on the store shelves.
Theme
A lighting theme is crucial to your design plan. It simply means you’ve chosen a consistent lighting style where pieces relate to one another, but don’t necessarily match perfectly. Rest assured, the style of your home doesn’t have to limit the lighting theme.
How to develop a theme—select a statement piece, a lighting centerpiece. Is there a chandelier or pendant that you just can’t get off your mind? Use this as a starting point to select other complementary pieces that are both stylish and functional.
How do you know it’s functional? It helps you to viably achieve your lighting goal.
So, if the objective is to add more light to the master bathroom in order to better apply makeup, I suggest a mirror with builtin led light strips. These lit mirrors can act as the centerpiece, an anchor to your bathroom light scheme.
These come in lots of price points and options, including vertical or horizontal lighting stripes that can be adjusted between cool and warm color temperatures. This mirror is designed specifically for bathrooms and illuminates specifically for better makeup application and shaving.
Another option is the LED bathroom bar light. These versatile and high-power lights can be placed above or along existing mirrors, and adjusted to shed light where you need it most.
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Timothy’s Finds: Chandeliers
Lighting is not always just pretty and bright! Overhead, ambient, and task lighting are key lighting functions that are needing to properly light any space. Chandeliers are often the first piece that people think of when designing a space.
INSPIRATION
Lighting is not always just pretty and bright! Overhead, ambient, and task lighting are key lighting functions that are needed to properly light any space. Chandeliers are often the first piece that people think of when designing a space. The chandelier darling…its just like jewelry in the room. In your dining room, foyer, and master bedroom…take the time to make a statement and as a little style to your space.
Here are a few of my favorite chandeliers.
CHANDELIERS
Timothy Rivers Interiors
I hope you found this article interesting and helpful. Wanna keep in touch? Consider joining my weekly newsletter. A weekly newsletter keeping you up to date on the latest of all things real estate, interiors, renovations, and custom home building.
Join our community of over 5000 readers and receive a well curated mix of inspiration, education, and resources on all things related to curating the home of your dreams.