There are many different types of lighting that can be used in your home, and each has its own benefits. For example, LED lights are energy-efficient and long lasting, making them a great option for areas where light is needed for extended periods of time. Natural light is also a great way to brighten up any room, and it can be used in a variety of ways. If you’re not sure which type of light to choose for your needs, here are some tips to help you make the best decision.
The different types of lighting and how they can be used in your home
You might think that the lights in your home are mostly fixed and that you can’t add much more than a few lamps to the ones that are already there. As you can see from the 14 types listed here, this assumption couldn’t be more wrong. Read on to find out how easy and fun it is to change the way the lights work in your home.
What is the lighting inside?
These fixtures are precisely what they appear to be: any lamp, pendant, or other types of light source that is used to illuminate the interior of a house or other building.
In most cases, they are not only created to illuminate your space but also to add style and make your furniture appear better. Their primary function, however, is to provide illumination.
This includes any lamps or other lights that you add to your home in addition to the ones that are already there when you move in. This also covers any fixtures that are already there when you move in.
Because the vast majority of indoor fixtures are not dustproof or waterproof, which are both desirable attributes in outdoor fixtures, these fixtures should never be utilized outside; instead, they should be used inside.
14 kinds of lighting for inside
Mix and match any of the following indoor fixtures to make your space look better and set the mood for any event:
Lights that are built in
Indoor lights that are completely built into your walls, ceilings, or floors are called “recessed fixtures.” Even though that wording sounds fancy or complicated, it’s just an interior design term for things that are flush with your ceiling or walls. Fixtures that stick out from your walls, floors, or ceiling, on the other hand, are not recessed.
Lights on tracks
You don’t have to use the lights that came with your home to get light from the ceiling to the floor. Track lights are put on your ceiling and stick out from it. You can use them to light up hallways or the middle of a room because they point straight down. They look expensive and artistic, but you might need an electrician to help you put them upright.
Pendants
Pendants come in many different colors and styles that go well with any kind of home decor. Pendants are easy to set up on your own (but having some friends help never hurts). Just put some strong hooks on the ceiling, and then run the wire of your pendant through the hooks and along the walls and floors so it’s out of sight. Pendants are stylish like track lights, but they can be much easier to set up. Another type of indoor light that is often wrongly thought to be hard to install…
Wall sconces
You might think that to use wall sconces, you need an electrician to run wires behind your walls so that they can light up your hallways and side tables. But it’s not always like that! Plug-in wall sconces are the answer to this problem. Just hide the wire, plug the sconces in, and mount them securely. Most likely, no one but you will know that you went with a plug-in instead of a more permanent investment.
Ceiling lighting
When it comes to permanent things, installing ceiling fixtures will give your indoor lighting design a steady, reliable base. We don’t just mean standard recessed ceiling fixtures; we also mean chandeliers, pendants that you mount close to your ceiling, and even low-hanging lights. Without ceiling lights, your living room, bedroom, or kitchen might not have enough light.
Lighting in the room
Ambient lighting is what you use if you put lights on (or in!) your ceiling to create a well-lit base like we just talked about. This is one of the three main kinds of indoor lighting, and it covers a wide range of fixtures and styles. Ambient lighting could be something like a floor lamp that gives off enough light to light up the whole room. It gives your room a base layer of soft or bright white, off-white, or yellow light that you can build on with the other two main types of lighting: task lighting and accent lighting.
Task lighting
Task lamps and other similar fixtures are set up or installed to help with certain tasks. Task lights include your desk lamp, your bedside reading lamp, and the light over your sink that you turn on to wash dishes. You usually put them on side tables or right above chairs or desks. Like accent fixtures, you can be very creative with how they look, how bright they are, and where you put them.
Lighting for accents
Need a quick way to make your favorite piece of furniture or painting stand out more and look brighter? You want lighting that stands out. Put a light fixture right above a beautiful loveseat or right under a beautiful painting to draw attention to it and make it shine. With accent lighting, you can draw attention to all the best parts of a room.
LED Lights
This type of indoor lighting is best known as an energy-efficient alternative to the light bulbs that were most common in the 20th century. LEDs shine light in all directions, giving your room a soft color. They last a long time and stay lit for tens of thousands of hours. Some models can also change colors with the help of a remote or an app. There are many different kinds of LED lights, from regular bulbs to strip lights and string lights that are used for decoration or to draw attention to something.
Light from a laser
Lasers are electrical filaments that are used to make light and can be found in many different kinds of fixtures. Since lasers move in a narrow beam instead of scattering in all directions, their brightness and focus don’t change as they get farther away. Its narrow path also makes it easy to split one beam into thousands of smaller beams. This is why many of the laser projectors we sell at BlissLights have that beautiful starry sky effect, which we’ll talk more about soon.
Lights you can carry
These fittings are portable, so you can take them from one room to another or even to the workplace or the homes of other people. Simply plugging them in and setting them up is a breeze. You can connect them to a standard outlet or to a USB. Because they are so lightweight and compact, it is simple to put them away and bring them along wherever you go. At BlissLights, we have a product called the StarPort Laser USB that exemplifies what a portable light should be. This diminutive light has a connector that allows it to be plugged into a portable battery, charging base, or laptop, making it simple to transport from one area to another. However, the power that it emits from its light is enormous!
Lights that plug-in
There are all kinds of plug-in lights, from traditional daytime lights to special lasers. Your favorite floor lamp and laser projectors are both things that you plug in. For example, with our Ark Ambient Aurora Light, all you have to do is plug it into an outlet and put your projector wherever you want. Soon after, your room will be filled with a nebula of beautiful blue and green colors that will take you away and make you feel calm.
The stars shine
Use lasers to make it feel like you’re outside at night. Star lighting fills a room with red, blue, or green light and projects stars all over the space. Even the most eye-catching accent pieces can’t make your room look like what you see at midnight from a clear field with no streetlights. Instead, use our BlissBulb for that. The shapes it makes may be fun and unusual, but it screws into standard light fixtures just like any other bulb. This makes it very easy to get a beautiful view.
Galaxy and nebula cloud fixtures
You can project more than just stars—you can show whole galaxies inside. Lay back and relax as a calming swirl of nebula clouds with starry spots fills your room. Our SkyLite Laser Galaxy Projector, which is a huge hit on TikTok, can help you feel this kind of peace. This new trend in home decor can be done by anyone, even you.
Lighting placement tips to make your home look its best
Lighting might be one of the most important factors to consider when thinking about the flow of space, ambiance, and atmosphere in your home. The feeling of alertness and wakefulness that comes from being exposed to brighter light can be contrasted with the relaxing and sleep-inducing effects of dimmer, softer light.
Nadia McCowan Hill, a resident style expert at Wayfair, offers some advice on how to make the most of lighting in order to give the impression that your house is both larger and cozier.
8 lighting tricks interior designers use to create an atmosphere
Develop a strategy for the lighting
Create a micro brief or lighting plan that addresses the essentials, whether you’re starting from scratch or repainting a room. This will help keep you on track while you work. Think about the kinds of things you do in each space (such as dining, relaxing, or working), the important aspects of the room that you want to highlight, and the architectural constraints that you might need to take into mind. Before you go into making design decisions, you should first think about the scale, style, output, and even color temperature of the lights. When you prepare ahead, you avoid stress and the need to make hasty judgments at the last minute.
Create multiple layers of lighting
In order to provide ambiance as well as intrigue in a space, you should utilize a multi-layered lighting strategy that incorporates a variety of light sources placed at various heights. Make the most of a room’s size and shape by using lighting strategically. For example, using uplighting to make a room appear larger, low-hung pendants to create the illusion of height, and clusters of lighting to make huge rooms seem cozier are all examples of how lighting may be used.
Make certain that the lighting is functional.
Think about the activities that you might be performing in each room and how the lighting might affect or help you with those activities. Because more focused lighting is required for cooking, it is helpful to have a mix of strong downlights and recess lighting in cupboards and above stove tops. When reading, illumination that is both adjustable and directional and that is directed away from you is ideal. A mixture of downlights and sidelights is necessary for lighting in powder rooms. Dimmers will rapidly become your new best friend because they provide an efficient and effective technique to swiftly adjust the ambience and warmth of a room while also being able to save electricity.
Pick the light bulb with great care.
When you realize that your bulbs have burned out, choosing replacements shouldn’t be an afterthought as you dash through the store looking for new ones. You need to take into consideration the following:
How much light do you require in your environment? (W)
Which kind of ambiance are you hoping to accomplish? (color temperature, for example, a lower temperature is more comparable to the glow of candlelight, while a higher temperature is more analogous to the color of the sky outdoors).
Should we take into account energy efficiency? (for more frequently used lights).
Are you working on a design or trying to make a statement with the focus point (using scale, form, or color)?
Draw attention to some of your favorites by using spotlights.
Make use of lighting to draw attention, either quietly or not so discreetly, to a crucial possession, architectural component, or feature wall (like your mahogany leather sofa or winged armchair). A space can be made cozier, more sophisticated, and more elegant by installing wall-mounted lights in a symmetrical arrangement on either side of a statement mirror and placing it above the mantelpiece of a fireplace.
Ensure that your visitors have a pleasant experience
It is possible to draw people’s attention to the center of a dinner table by directing a spotlight there.
Shine a torch before you in the dark.
The intense illumination that, at the mere flick of a switch, induces momentary blindness makes those midnight toilet breaks that much more difficult. Make an investment in directed floor level lighting for the corridors, stairwells, and bathroom to create an atmosphere of subtle warmth and serve as a guide.
Sometimes less is more
When it comes to lighting, specifically, it is important to maintain coherence throughout the home with regard to the concept, color schemes, and material finishes. When there are too many various types competing for attention in a jumbled array around the home, it can be difficult on the eyes and lead to unease. A room that is decorated in neutral tones and lighter tones will give the impression that it is larger. Adding interest to the room may be accomplished by adding bold pops of color (for example, through the lampshades), while decorating in deeper tones gives the impression of luxury and coziness. Maintain a straightforward and consistent approach.
How to use natural light to brighten up any room
Lydia Deetz’s father volunteered to construct her a darkroom in the basement. My life is bleak. Large, dark room.” For most people, a light-filled home is preferred. Sometimes it’s difficult. Designing a room sometimes involves lightening a dark environment. Jessica Schuster, Dan Mazzarini, and Gary McBournie add light through details. We asked them how to let light in by painting the ceiling and adding accessories.
White floor
As if you needed an excuse to cover the apartment’s parquet floors. Mazzarini claims white-painted floors reflect light. “I like Sherwin-Williams Armorseal Rexthane.” Here, the designer contrasted snow-white floors with black furnishings and decorations.
Bright rug
A wide, colorful area rug, like the one in Juliana Lima Vasconcellos’s apartment, does more than define space. McBournie loves bright rugs. “They can captivate and distract.”
Ditch heavy curtains
Schuster uses solar or Roman shades instead of drapes to finish the windows with less cloth. Take down dark, heavy curtains. In the designer’s personal flat, curtain-less windows emphasize natural light.
Bright art
Dark spaces might be comforting, but colorful art will brighten them up. McBournie warns, “Don’t forget picture lights or spotlights.”
In a dark San Francisco den, designer Nicole Hollis hung a brilliant artwork by Doug Aitken.
Hang a mirror
By bouncing light off of reflective surfaces, you can get twice as much sunlight into a room. Schuster says that putting a decorative mirror opposite the windows or mirroring an entire wall helps bring in light, just like Gabriel Hendifar did in his hot New York apartment shown here.
High-gloss ceilings
High-gloss ceiling paint is a great method to bring more light into a room. McBournie thinks high-gloss paint can brighten a dark environment. Oliver M. Furth painted a Beverly Hills home’s ceiling in Gun Powder high-gloss lacquer.
Room temperature
Color temperature is important for illumination. Mazzarini recommends 2700K bulbs for LEDs. If finances allows, utilize warm-glow dimming bulbs.
Lindsey Adelman chose her own Drop System chandelier for her Brooklyn townhouse.
Metallics
Gold or silver accessories may brighten a dark room. McBournie has employed metallics on walls, ceilings, light fixtures, and furniture. Too much of a good thing is bad. Rodney Lawrence used silvery lighting and de Gournay wallpaper in a South Florida bedroom.
Light-wood floors
To brighten an area, choose light-wood flooring. “A lighter floor juxtaposed with a bright wall might help ‘push the walls out,’” McBournie explains. Designer Delia Kenza recently renovated a Brooklyn mansion.
White lampshades
White paper wraps lighten a room…and everything else. Mazzarini advises using white paper. He proposes bringing in white paper lampshades, lanterns, and pendant lights. Olivier Dwek created this cheerful Belgian bedroom.
Choose white or neutral colors
Dark colors don’t work in a dark room. Schuster thinks light-colored walls and ceilings can brighten a dark room. If your walls are neutral, paint the ceiling brighter to reflect light. This helped Carly Cushnie’s New York apartment feel airy.
Add light
At night, indirect lighting helps make up for a dark ceiling. McBournie: “Be imaginative!” “I designed a false light shaft with an iron grating for a New York apartment’s library.”
Example? Vintage sconces replace task lighting in a Cochineal-designed kitchen.
Regularly clean windows
True. Cleaning your windows will let more sunlight into the space. McBournie says clean windows transform a room. “Do this every spring and fall, or more often.” Nickey Kehoe’s light-filled living area demonstrates the strategy’s success.
Hiring a lighting designer
Those dumpster-dived fixtures aren’t helping you or that dark space. Schuster says a lighting designer can make the light feel more expansive in a gloomy area. Richard Mishaan’s bathroom room has the perfect illumination.
The benefits of using LED lights in your home
LED lighting provides various benefits to industrial and commercial enterprises who are interested in reducing their energy consumption as well as their expenditures associated with doing so. LED lights have a number of benefits, including the following:
Longevity
LED lights last longer than incandescent bulbs. A 1000-hour incandescent bulb is typical. LEDs last 50,000 hours on average. Depending on use, it can last 100,000 hours. This means LED lights can last six to 12 years. 40x longer than an incandescent bulb.
LED lights last two to four times longer than fluorescent, metal halide, or sodium vapor lights.
Savings include repair and maintenance expenditures of your company’s lighting bill.
Conservation
LED lighting is also energy-efficient. Useful lumens measure how much light a light source emits per watt of power it requires. In the past, we measured light by its lumens, but some are wasted. LED lighting wastes less light and produces more lumens.
If you replaced all your workplace, school, or other facility’s lights with LEDs, you could save 60% to 70% on energy. Depending on the old lights and the new LEDs, the improvement might be as high as 90%.
Energy efficiency improvements save money. LED lights are a sensible investment for any business’s bottom line because they reduce energy usage.
Environmental improvement
Companies must become greener. Using an environmentally friendly light source can save energy use and attract socially aware customers.
LED production has environmental benefits. Many classic lights, such fluorescent and mercury vapor, contain mercury. When they die, they need special care. LED lights avoid these concerns.
Cold-weather ability
Cold weather hurts traditional lighting sources. When temperatures drop, lighting sources, especially fluorescent lights, require more power to start and emit less light.
LEDs perform 5% better in low conditions. LED lights are excellent for freezers, meat lockers, cold storage rooms, and refrigerated display cases. Their cold-weather performance makes them ideal for parking lot lighting, building perimeter lights, and outdoor signage.
No heat or UV
If you’ve ever changed a burned-out incandescent bulb, you know how hot they become. Traditional lighting sources like incandescent bulbs consume 90% of their energy to heat, producing only 10% light.
LEDs emit little heat and mostly visible light. This attribute is one reason medical specialists are looking at LEDs as a possible cure for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
LEDs are perfect for illuminating art that may fade with UV exposure.
Flexibility
Small LEDs (about the size of a spec of pepper). They may be utilized practically everywhere. Remember, these were originally circuit board indication lights. When bundled, they form a bulb. Stringing LED lights together creates a line of lights, like Christmas lights.
Consider the lighting possibilities this affords you. LEDs are so compact they can light a shop floor or a sports stadium.
Instant lighting and switchability
LED lighting is quick-starting. Instant-on LED lights. Metal halide lamps require a warm-up period. Fluorescent lights flicker and take a few seconds to completely glow when turned on. LED lights avoid these difficulties.
Turning on and off standard light sources shortens their lifespan. Frequent switching doesn’t affect LEDs. It doesn’t reduce their efficiency or lifespan.
LEDs can be turned on instantly after a blackout or power spike, making them excellent for businesses. This feature is especially beneficial if you want your lights to turn on when an employee opens a building before dawn.
LEDs can be rapidly cycled for flashing light displays or applications that require sensors that frequently switch on and off.
Low-voltage operation
If your business is prone to floods, use low-voltage lighting. Low-voltage LEDs are ideal for this. In flood-prone areas, a low-voltage system protects personnel and others from damaging or lethal shocks. During flood cleanup, a low-voltage lighting system that generates 12 volts is safer than a 120-volt system.
This makes them suitable for outdoor illumination where other options may not fulfill codes.
Dimming
LEDs work at 5% to 100% power. Metal halide lighting dims inefficiently. Some can’t be dimmed.
LEDs are energy-efficient. LED lights work more efficiently at lower power levels. This has other advantages. It extends the bulb’s life and reduces energy expenditures.
LEDs can’t be dimmed with typical equipment. They need custom hardware.
Direction
Every conventional lighting system emits 360° light. To direct the light to a certain place, you’ll need to buy accessories.
If you don’t reflect or redirect light, you’ll waste energy illuminating places that don’t need it, increasing energy expenditures.
LED lighting is great for recessed lighting in an industrial kitchen, hallway, or bathroom because it only illuminates a 180° area. It’s perfect for lighting artwork because it won’t degrade it and you won’t lose any lighting power to the back of the light source.
Conclusion
There are a few different types of lighting that can be used in your home, each with its own benefits. For example, incandescent bulbs provide a warm, inviting light, while LED bulbs are more energy-efficient. When choosing light bulbs, it’s important to consider both the type of light you want and the amount of energy you’re willing to use. Lighting placement is also important for creating the desired atmosphere in your home. Strategic placement of lamps and fixtures can brighten up any room, whether you’re looking for a cozy reading nook or a bright work space. And finally, don’t forget the power of natural light. Opening up curtains and blinds is an easy way to let the sun shine in, saving you money on your energy bill and filling your home with warm, natural light.