Lighting tips for every room in the house

Editor’s note: Rich Ideas is a monthly design column by Sheila Rich of Monmouth Beach, a Certified Interior Designer in New Jersey. Her award-winning firm Sheila Rich Interiors has won Best Of Design and Customer Service on Houzz, a popular platform for home remodeling and design.

One of the things I enjoy so much about personal appearances (like at the March 16 APP Talks I did about design that makes a difference) is helping people with their design challenges and answering design questions about both residential and commercial spaces.

Lighting serves a number of different purposes, from creating ambiance to safety to basic functionality. While each room in your home has its own special lighting needs, they should be addressed both individually and as part of the whole.

The types of lighting being used now have changed, with traditional incandescent light giving way to more energy-efficient types of lighting. Of the three top choices, LED appears to be favored for future technologies and is one of the most energy efficient; in fact, it’s 80 percent more energy efficient and has 20 times more life than incandescent lighting.

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LEDs also produce less heat, which is particularly good for warm summer months, when less heat means a reduction of energy use and lower cooling bills. LEDs are also ideal to highlight art and collectables because of the cooler temperatures. They are durable and eco-friendly because they can be recycled so they reduce your carbon footprint, and they’re budget-friendly since each bulb can last for up to 11 years.

LED lights now come in a variety of colors, from daylight and warm white to actual colored bulbs. Unlike the bluish tone of traditional bulbs, daylight and warm white LEDs will not alter the colors of your room. However, if you want to create a dramatic effect, alter the mood of a room or enhance a wall with a different color for a holiday or other occasion, you can use a colored LEDs to do just that.

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Colored lights are used in Chroma therapy (color therapy). Some spa tubs come with these options to aid in stress reduction or healing, which is another good use for this lighting.

The kitchen

With that in mind, we can zero in on specific rooms, starting with the work horse of the house: the kitchen. I like to use recessed lighting overhead for the work area to light up the space. However, under-cabinet lights are ideal to properly illuminate your food preparation area. You can use strip or rope LEDs to evenly light the space — these can be hidden by a matching rail at the bottom of the cabinet.

You also can use over-cabinet lighting as a soft accent or to highlight a collection. Pendant lights work well to add extra brightness over the island, and an appropriate hanging lamp or chandelier above the kitchen table provides more focused light for meal times.

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Dining room

Lighting in areas where you entertain needs to welcome guests and draw the eye to certain areas while remaining more subtle in others. In the dining room, the main feature is usually the table, so the brightest light in the room should come from the chandelier controlled with a dimmer so you can set various moods.

In other areas of the room, you can use matching sconces to create symmetry and understated elegance; sideboard lamps add both indirect lighting and style. A mirror hung above the sideboard will reflect both natural light from windows and light from the chandelier and lamps.

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Living room

Sometimes in living rooms you’ll see a dark corner or two; it’s best to eliminate shadowy areas. You can use recessed lights, wall sconces, table lamps or floor lamps and vary the type of lamps you use in the room, making sure any chairs meant for reading have appropriate lighting.

Most living rooms have a focal point, whether it’s a fireplace, a piece of art, etc., and you can draw the eye to it with focused lighting. Lighting should always be put on dimmers.

Bedroom

Bedroom lighting should create a warm, cozy atmosphere and be softer around the bed and brighter in dressing areas; this is another room where dimmers are important. If you have a trey ceiling, that’s a perfect place for lighting. You also can hang a chandelier in the center of the trey to fill the volume and create a focal point.

Bedside lamps are great for reading or you can use sconces above the bed, as long as their lighting isn’t too harsh. Make sure your closet is well lit so you can easily see the different color shadings of your clothes.

Bathroom

Depending on your design style, it’s not unusual to see small chandeliers and pendants used in bathrooms. Where there’s a master bedroom suite or any en-suite, the lighting should coordinate with the bedroom.

If you have a bathroom with an open view where privacy isn’t an issue, you can minimize window treatments and allow ambient light into the room. It’s also a good idea to light up showers with a recessed shower light with a sealed trim rated for wet locations.

Other areas

Don’t forget proper lighting for hallways — you can use recessed lighting as pathfinding, sconces or flush-mount fixtures to keep corridors well lit.

Sometimes there are no options to install ceiling lighting, which happened with two of my clients’ projects. One was a condo with cement ceilings where no lighting could be installed. To overcome that obstacle, we added coffered ceilings with recessed lighting. This not only solved the lighting problem, it also added depth, definition and dimension to the space.

The other project was a dark and dull basement that we were transforming into a private retreat. The solution to this challenge was to allow the wall and ceiling paint to work in harmony with subtle lighting to keep the room softly yet efficiently lit. Ceiling lights were not an option, so we used floor lamps and wall sconces that were enhanced by metallic in the paint that reflected the light, also adding more ambiance.

I use dimmers in most rooms so there’s always an option to set the tone from full to more subtle light. No matter what lighting challenges your home has, there’s a solution to keep things bright, set the right mood, and highlight focal points while enhancing each room’s style. One final note — let the lighting in your rooms help you choose the right colors for new fabrics, carpeting and paints. Colors, shades and hues tend to be different in your home than they are in the store, so bring home samples and put them in the areas where they’ll live.

Give yourself time to observe them in different types of lighting, from the natural light of bright, sunny days and the dim, duller cast of cloudy days to nighttime artificial light. Then you can be sure that the tones you want are truly the tones you’ll get.

Sheila Rich can be reached at 732-870-3012 or sheila@sheilarichinteriors.com. More information is at www.sheilarichinteriors.com.