Build.com for Pros: Interior Lighting Design

Lighting is one of the essential designs and decorating elements in every room of the home. Showcasing any room in its best light requires thoughtful interior lighting design that combines functionality with fashion.

Interior Lighting Design Solutions for Every Room

Before you can begin deciding how to light a home, you must first evaluate the design of the room and consider the needs of the space. Look for dark corners and think about a daily schedule and which places need the most direct and indirect lighting.

Direct lighting provides the brightness needed to complete a task, such as preparing a meal or reading a book. Indirect lighting provides a softer glow on the space and brings an added level of ambiance to the design of the room. Both types of lighting are essential in every home design.

Dining Room Lighting

Gathering around a table should be a welcoming and relaxing experience. The dining room table is the focal point of any dining room. Show it off in its best light by displaying a chandelier over the dining table. These overhead lighting fixtures can be round or rectangular in shape, depending upon the style of the table itself.

Many dining room light ideas are compatible for use with dimmers, making chandeliers or pendant lights adjustable for different times of the day or occasions. Wall sconces are another popular dining room lighting solution, especially in more traditional homes. Updates for more modern features are often just a matter of switching in the new fixture and can be a quick job with a high impact.

Living Room Lighting

A living room is one of the spaces of the home that serves the most functions. It can be a place to settle in for a movie marathon, to sit and visit with friends and family, or to read a newspaper in quiet. With living room lighting, it's essential to provide a variety of different lighting solutions.

• Recessed Lights: Recessed lighting can be used throughout the home when you need bright light flooding the room evenly. 
• Table & Floor Lamps: When a little more ambiance is desired, turn off the recessed lights and flip on a floor lamp, table lamp, or wall sconce. 

• Pendant Lights or Ceiling Fan Lights: Putting an overhead pendant light or ceiling fan with a light in the room and placing it on a dimmer will help provide adjustable light.
• Track Lighting: When you want to direct the eye to a specific piece of artwork or add task lighting to a favorite seat in the room, track lighting can provide a great solution.

Kitchen Lighting Ideas

The kitchen may be the heart of the home but that can also make it a tricky room to illuminate. Chopping and prepping meals requires bright, overhead lighting. When you're looking for kitchen lighting ideas, it's all about directing light straight down on the space below. Recessed lighting evenly spaced across the ceiling will provide an even distribution of light across every working surface in the kitchen.

Kitchen lighting doesn't have to sacrifice style. Consider lining up a large, rectangular light fixture over a kitchen island or lining up a trio of pendant lights above a bar area. In fact, a kitchen island lighting fixture is a great way to infuse a pop of style and color in a room that can otherwise be challenging to decorate because it is so functional.

For members of the home that enjoy midnight snacks, consider adding under-cabinet lighting to your kitchen design. These lights can help brighten up areas that are typically in the shadows of the upper cabinets.

Laundry Room Lighting Solutions

There are fewer spaces more designed for function than a laundry room. This task-oriented area requires ample overhead lighting, so you can clearly identify any stains or marks on the clothing and help make it easier to iron thoroughly. A bright laundry room can also appear cleaner and more inviting. Recessed lighting and a single overhead lighting fixture are among the most common choices for illuminating a laundry room.

Bathroom Lighting Options

Getting ready for the day starts in the bathroom, where function, fashion and safety need to be the three key lighting factors.  Every aspect of the bathroom requires different lighting, and it’s important to make sure that all bathroom lighting is approved for installation in damp locations.

In the shower, overhead lighting will provide the illumination needed. If there is a separate water closet, that room will require a separate overhead lighting solution. The vanity typically offers the most stylish bathroom lighting in the room but it needs to be bright enough to help you prepare for the day. Hollywood lights, traditional vanity lights, and mirrors surrounded with integrated lights are all options available.

Make Lighting Energy-Efficient

All the lights used throughout the home run on electricity. Help keep the carbon footprint of the home as low as possible by trading out fixtures with standard, incandescent light bulbs for those with LED light bulbs. LED lighting fixtures use a fraction of the energy and typically provide up to 50,000 hours of brightness. 

The long lifetime makes LEDs especially appealing for homes with recessed lights in a tall ceiling or numerous small bulbs in a high chandelier. In fact, interior lights for the home have come a long way and today, there are many smart lighting fixtures and bulbs on the market that can be controlled from a phone or tablet.

As you complete your interior lighting design, take into consideration the sight lines of the home. With open floor plans, it's essential that all the different lights featured within the same sight lines look cohesive in finish, material, and overall design style.

With such a vast selection of lights for your rooms available, it's easy to find interior lights for homes of any size and design. Make the interior lighting design a reflection of your client’s style and the lights in the room will become a focal point of the overall design.