Outdoor Lighting for your Home Design

Outdoor lighting makes your home safer and more secure by providing necessary illumination for walkways, steps and entrances. The use of outdoor lighting, in conjunction with timers and photo cells, can add even more peace-of-mind by providing a lived-in look while you're away from home and insuring the area around the house is well lit when you arrive home after dark.

The most common type of outdoor fixture is a brass wall lantern, although materials such as cast aluminum have gained popularity due to their rust-resistant qualities. Generally, a light mounted to one side of every exterior door is the minimum lighting for the exterior of a house, however it is recommended that a lantern or other wall fixture on both sides of the door and a pendant or a post light near driveways and walkways be used for additional safety and security. Be sure to select the appropriate size fixture – one that isn’t too small or too big for your home.

See a Lighting One sales consultant for more information and design ideas.

Wall Mounted Lighting for your Home Decor

Wall fixtures are used to provide illumination for a specific area such as a hallway or a bathroom vanity. Although traditional wall fixtures with arms remain the most popular form of wall lighting, more contemporary wall sconces are gaining popularity, especially for hallway or accent lighting.

Wall lighting can offer needed illumination levels to prevent accidents on stairs, especially when an overhead ceiling fixture is not feasible. Wall lighting can also be used for reading in bed. Use two matching wall mounted or pendant fixtures installed 30" above the top of the mattress for best results.

See a Lighting One sales consultant for more information and design ideas. Posted with permission from Lighting One at http://www.lighting-one.com/

Lamps for your Home Design

Accent lamps can be used in bedrooms, bathrooms, hallways, entrances or any spot in your home that may require extra lighting. Because accent lamps are typically under 20" in height, they provide just the right amount of accent lighting for most any home.

Table lamps typically range anywhere from 25" to 32" in height and are used for general purpose lighting in living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms and family rooms. Floor lamps are also an excellent source of illumination, and are especially useful in dark corners of a room or any other areas that regular lighting may not reach.

Desk lamps are typically 12" to 20" high and are used to light a specific work area such as a desk or small work table. When table space is limited, wall lamps are a good alternative, and are quite common in bedrooms.

Lamps are essential home decorating accessories. The style and finish of a lamp is as important as the wallpaper, carpet or paint used in a room. Although polished brass remains a favorite with homeowners, polished brass, wrought iron, neutral tans, off-whites, and antique whites are gaining popularity.

Remember if you purchase a lamp with a three-way switch, you'll need to purchase a three-way bulb. A three-way switch, on its own, will not provide three levels of illumination without a three-way bulb installed.

See a Lighting One sales consultant for more information and design ideas. Posted with permission from Lighting One www.lighting-one.com

Recessed Lighting for your Home Design

Recessed light fixtures can be used for concentrated down lighting, which creates attractive and inviting living areas for the home. This effect is perfect for lighting a kitchen counter or bathroom vanity because it confines illumination to one specific area, making detailed tasks easier to perform. Recessed lighting works best with other lighting and can be dimmed for special effects.

Recessed light fixtures can also be used for accent lighting. You can draw attention to a painting, a plant or any other noteworthy object in any room in your home. Rooms may appear larger with recessed light fixtures by washing a wall in light. This technique--perfect for small living areas--adds visual depth by creating shadows and contrasts.

More information on Recessed Lighting is available in Kitchen Lighting on www.lighting-one.com.

See a Lighting One sales consultant for more information and design ideas. Posted with permission from Lighting One at http://www.lighting-one.com

Landscape Lighting - Design for the Outdoors

Landscape lighting can be used to improve the beauty of your home’s exterior while providing security and safety. Enhance the ambiance of your property at night with low-voltage landscape lighting of trees, shrubs and flowers, plus increase safety by lighting up stairs, driveways, walkways and grounds with post lanterns and tier lights. Low voltage lighting uses only 12 volts of electricity and is safe to install.

You can easily create a lighting plan by choosing one or two points of interest and make these the centerpiece of your landscape lighting display, then build the rest of your lighting plan around your focal point. Unique landscape features, such as sculptures and shaped shrubbery, can be highlighted using spotlights, or a sequence of spotlights can create an interesting mosaic of colors and textures. In addition, up-lighting adds visual interest to objects such as trees, bushes, statues and fountains.
Other techniques include the use of path lighting to illuminate the areas where people walk or drive, which adds an element of safety and beauty. Floodlighting is also a versatile technique used for illuminating a wide range of features including walls, garden ponds or gazebos. This lighting can also be used to make a path attractive and safe.

Use silhouetting to provide dramatic effects on a broad surface, like a wall, behind a landscape feature such as bushes. Wall lighting can be incorporated into a wall bordering a building, pool or walkway area for added visibility.

For maximum light output, light fixtures should not be covered by foliage, tree branches or bushes. Check the fixtures periodically to see if nearby foliage needs pruning. Also, for maximum safety, light and cables should be installed at least five feet from the edge of a swimming pool.
Remember to regularly clean the lenses and fixtures of your landscape lighting and take the time to readjust ground level fixtures if needed.

See a Lighting One sales consultant for more information and design ideas. Posted with permission from Lighting One at www.lighting-one.com

How do you light your foyer?

The appropriate lighting in a foyer is often guided by the scale of the room. Whatever the size, however, the use of layering is a useful and appropriate solution.

In almost every situation, the use of a decorative fixture in the center of the ceiling is desirable. In two-story spaces, the use of a larger chandelier will fit well for creating both task lighting and ambient lighting. The chandelier also will bring attention to itself and create a desirable accent focus.

In one-story spaces it is often more appropriate to use close-to-ceiling fixtures, or smaller chandeliers that have an appropriate scale in proportion to the ceiling height. In today’s marketplace there are thousands of interesting options in decorative fixtures that are either surface-mounted or close-to-ceiling.

To create the most desirable lighting solution in a foyer, look for opportunities to use recessed lighting that will bring additional ambient light to the space. When using a central decorative fixture, it is useful to place two or more recessed fixtures on either side of the fixture to bring added illumination.

Other useful foyer lighting solutions, in addition to the central chandelier, are to use wall sconces and/or small portable table lamps placed on a small table in the space. The sconces and table lamps add a valuable layering effect that brings a human scale to the space. While recessed and decorative ceiling fixtures add appropriate task and ambient lighting, sconces and table lamps bring a sense of human scale and are excellent for creating focal accent points.

See a Lighting One sales consultant for more information and design ideas. Posted with permission from http://www.lighting-one.com/

Decorative Accents for your Home Lighting

The most common applications of decorative accent lighting are under cabinet lighting for kitchens, accent lighting in entertainment and curio cabinets, picture highlighting, backlighting on the top of cabinets and "toe" lighting around the bottom of cabinets.

Newer, more decorative under cabinet lights are now available to replace and upgrade older fluorescent fixtures. Halogen lights are also gaining popularity in this category.

More information on Accent Lighting is available in Fundamentals of Accent Lighting. See a Lighting One sales consultant for more information and design ideas.

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Ceiling Lighting for your home decor - Pendants and Chandeliers

Ceiling fixtures provide excellent general room illumination. Pendants can also be used to add more light to specific areas such as a kitchen table, and ceiling mounted fixtures are ideal for general lighting in the foyer. For safety in hallways, install lighting fixtures approximately every 8 to 10 feet.

Chandeliers or pendants with 200-400 watts of overall wattage provide abundant illumination for a dining room. The diameter of the fixture should be 12" less than the width of the table, and the fixture should be centered over the table and installed 30" above the table to allow for headroom when standing.

To prevent accidents, stairs should be lit top to bottom, with switches in both places. Ceiling fixtures or recessed lighting will offer the needed light for stairs. Also, increased wattage should be used in areas where tasks are performed, in rooms with ceilings higher than 8 feet, and in rooms with dark-colored floors and walls.

See a Lighting One sales consultant for more information and design ideas.

Posted with permission from http://www.lighting-one.com/