Brighten Up Your Living Room With These Useful Lighting Tips

Lighting is one of the most important aspects to having a nice home. Whether you’re looking to renovate to boost the chance of a sale or are just wanting to improve your living space for you and your family, there are plenty of things you can do. Our living rooms are frequented the most by us and guests, so getting the balance between bright and comforting light is essential. Read on for our top tips to find what could work for your room.

Assess Your Natural Light

During the daytime, your windows should be doing a lot of the work with lighting your living room. Think about any furniture that’s blocking too much sunlight and take note of any areas that are overtly shady. First, try to increase the natural light flow into the room using brighter wall colors and even mirrors. If your living room doesn’t have its own strong source of natural light, there are some ways in which you can rectify this. Other than installing skylights and larger windows if the room, you can use mirrors in lighter areas of the house to direct that light through to your room. Add a windowed door to the room too, to allow you to shut the place off whilst retaining a healthy light level. You’ll find that with just a few additions like this, your time spent in your living room during the day will be much brighter.

Ambient Light

Utilizing diffused background lighting can help to set the mood of your room or add a natural glow to the room on gloomy days. When it comes to ambient lighting, you’ll want to consider using lights that can be customized, whether that’s just different shades of yellows and whites, or a full color spectrum. You can recess and hide these lights to avoid them from being a direct focus of you or guests and change the hue and brightness to have full control over the feel of the room. There are some other options that you can choose from to get that added glow. Items such as chandeliers can add a bit of sparkle and gravitas, as well as taller standing lights like torchieres and wall sconces.

Accent Lights

This is where you can have a bit more fun. There are many lighting options that can be used in quirky or more specific ways. Give the room a gallery-like feel with picture lights over your artwork. Or try custom neon signs for a funky retro look. Companies like Echo Neon have a wide range of word or image designs to choose from as well as customizing your own text signs. If you have a feature wall, you can even use up-lights that are implanted into the floor to really showcase that area. You could even install some handy track light systems which contain a few spotlights that can all be turned individually to accent areas of the room.

Task Lighting

Day or night, you’ll want to think about lights that serve a specific purpose. This can be table lamps, spotlights, reading lamps among others, that you will be using in specific scenarios. Your standard lighting, or the natural light that seeps into your home, is not always suitable for every task. Reading for example, is a common pastime where it can be difficult to both find a relaxing place to sit and have the right level of lighting to see the pages easily. A reading lamp would obviously be used for when you’re engrossed in a book. The variety for each individual task lighting is huge too. Your reading lamp doesn’t have to be on a side table. It could be a larger standing lamp with a flexible or movable arm. You could even attach a lamp to your wall behind a chair or sofa. Figure out which lighting you need and where you’ll be using those lights, especially before attaching anything to walls.

Old Bulbs

Similarly with neon lights, which were invented over a century ago, older bulb designs can be very endearing. Edison filament lightbulbs or their modern replications containing LEDs, have become very popular and can give the room a healthy, warm glow. These are especially great for those cozy evenings on the couch where you just want to unwind and let your troubles wash away.

Vintage Light Fittings

Making good use of older lights can add a lovely classic look to your living space. Cast iron fittings and sconces are popular additions and many people are opting for a more vintage theme for their homes. The cleaner, sleek look of modern décor has become incredibly commonplace, and whilst it may work for you, it can make a home look quite sterile if done incorrectly. Do what is best for you and your needs, but no matter what you choose, think carefully about it.