When doing a decoration project, most people are concerned with planning the furniture, organizing the spaces, colors, and trends, and lighting is relegated to the background.
However, a well-executed lighting project is responsible for highlighting the decoration, expanding spaces, and giving a feeling of coziness and well-being to the residents of that environment.
With that in mind, we have designed this article to explain the types of lighting and the importance of these different types that exist. Read on and learn to apply them according to your style and needs!
Understand the Importance of Lighting for Decor
“Lighting project” is an unusual expression, but it can change the design of your space. It analyses the artificial lighting of environments to bring more functionality, beauty, well-being, and even energy savings.
In fact, a well-executed lighting project strives for the least amount of light bulbs and opts for sustainable solutions, which do not waste energy but do not give up comfort.
It is developed according to the environment’s functionality, its actions, the presence and size of the furniture, and the needs and styles of those who live there.
In this sense, it is essential to prepare the project at the beginning of your construction or renovation work, so that a professional in the area can advise on points of light to highlight furniture and objects, indicate the types of lighting that provide the right effect, color and comfort. Planning all this premeditatedly avoids the later “break-up”. Check out the 6 most common types of lighting now and plan the application in your home!
Discover 6 Types of Lighting to Use at Home
The idea is to have a professional guide you and make a customized lighting project according to your needs. A bedroom asks for coziness and sobriety, while the kitchen requires adequate light for a more functional proposal. Next, we will cover 6 commonly used types of lighting and explain how they can be applied according to your style and space. Bring more light into your home with these ideas:
1. Direct Lighting
As the name implies in the direct lighting model, the light is directed directly onto some specific point. It is ideal for anyone who needs a light on top of an object, whether in a study room, office, or doctor’s office. You can also find direct lighting in libraries, with light for reading, and a bathroom or room where you can do makeup, for example.
In general, this model is planned with spots, lamps, lamps, and pendants — items that allow the light to be directed — and with LED lamps — that don’t heat up and don’t change the color of objects that require our attention. You may also check lighting details in the rooms of the nova city commercial block.
2. Indirect Lighting
Here, light is not the main focus of this type of lighting, but it helps to highlight pieces and objects in the space. It can be placed in detail on the floor, plaster ceilings, crown molding, room linings with targeted spots or sconces. To use this type of lighting, ideally, the reflective surface should be clear to be distributed more intimately across the room.
3. Difuse Lighting
A project that counts on diffused lighting has the proposal to lighten the entire environment softly, without generating contrasts or shadows on objects or furniture. This effect is achieved through a filter placed over the lamp — it can be a glass, a piece of acrylic, or with a milky appearance — and ensures that the light offers a feeling of comfort without damaging the eyes. In addition, it is widely used in living rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms.
4. Linear Lighting
It is a modern system in which the lighting is done through continuous light lines. Despite this effect, the light does not harm the eyes, and it is cozy and, when well distributed in the space, results in an exciting aesthetic. The model is also widely used for functional environments.
5. Guidance Lighting
Guidance lighting is lighting that is placed in a space to guide people as they transition through the place. She is light but constant to fulfill her task. It usually appears in hallways, stairs, near handrails, gardens and swimming pools. It is worth noting that, to ensure proper safety, the lamps must be completely built-in.
6. Accent Lighting
This type of lighting helps to highlight specific points in the environment or decoration. It’s a more concentrated light, which helps illuminate facades, landscaping areas or that beautiful painting you have in your living room. It is necessary to be very careful not to damage them when lighting art objects.
See Other Lighting Tips
Now, we’ll give you some tips, so you don’t make mistakes and have more success when lighting your spaces:
- Avoid placing spots on sofas and armchairs so that the light does not stay on people’s heads, which usually causes discomfort
- Draw attention to coffee tables and dressers with accent lighting
- Create light possibilities in your home so that you can adequately light the room at a party or dinner for two
- Enhance special wall coverings with directed light
- Illuminate works of art with pieces and lamps suitable for this purpose
- Use LED strips to highlight niches, shelves in a kitchen, or details in a baby room. They help create an indirect lighting effect and are very versatile
Lighting Outdoor Areas
Many people have doubts about lighting outdoor areas, such as backyards, balconies, swimming pools, among other spaces. To help you with this, we are going to bring you some tips that can help you in this process. See, next!
- Create highlights in the outdoor environment that can be helpful in creating better lighting. For example, you can place blue led strips on the edge of a swimming pool to create interesting effects
- Be aware of the electrical installations
- Consider the best placement of lighting, so as not to create dark areas that detract from your outdoor area
- Choose equipment that is suitable for lighting outdoor areas and, therefore, will be resistant to situations such as rain, wind, among others
- Install automatic sensors, which will illuminate the region when night falls, without the need to activate switches for this. You can also think of presence sensors to save energy and make the environment light whenever someone is in the place. This can be interesting for social environments (barbecues, balconies, swimming pools, etc.)
Choosing the Best Lighting Spots
How to arrange the lighting elements to create a well-lit environment without shadow areas that detract from the experience at the venue? We will show some tips below for this.
- Whenever possible, give preference to natural lighting during the day
- Use more than one type of lighting, when necessary, to generate an interesting effect and bring an efficient composition. We have conventional or led dichroic lamps, led strips that can be installed in environments, fluorescent lamps, or pendulum lights
- Use lamps or lampshades in points where there is some shadow, due to the layout of the environment
- Invest in directional luminaires, which allow you to direct lighting to specific fields that need more attention
- For environments that need more challenging lighting spots, LED strips can be a great addition. Its ease is that many of them are made of adhesives, which allows for easy installation;
- Analyze the functionality of environments: for example, the living room is often multifunctional, so you need to create a versatile lighting composition. Thus, you can use direct lighting by lamps and indirect lighting by LED strips and lampshades and the use of spots embedded in the ceilings, creating direct and indirect light sets. In the bedroom, for example, as it is a resting environment, it needs softer options
- Consider using dimmer to control the intensity, adjusting the lighting according to situations
Matching Lighting with Ambient Colors
Combining the lighting with the colors already present in the environment can have an exciting effect on the place’s decoration. After all, lighting can intensify, soften or even interfere with the chosen colors.
Want to see an example? Dark walls (for example, burnt cement walls, which are a strong trend at the moment) can undergo warm light changes (which have more yellowish and orange tones).
In this case, it is more interesting to opt for cold light for the environment to maintain the previous pattern. With light walls, you can use hot lamps without major problems.
Another point is: if the environment is traditionally dark, even with the lighting points brought in, it is important to consider the possibility of changing the colors of the walls for lighter tones.
This helps to enhance natural lighting and thus lower energy consumption to keep the place bright.
As we have seen, the types of lighting offer countless possibilities for you to adequately light your home, bringing comfort, providing functionality, and enhancing your decor.
The project for applying the light must be guided by a professional, but by reading this text and observing your space, you can get an idea of what you can do and what to highlight in your home.
There are houses designed to keeping in view all the lighting considerations. Now, all that’s left is to get your hands dirty!
