How to Effectively Light Up your Home
Lights play an important role in the creation of ambient living spaces. With the wrong lighting in place, your home could either look dull and uninviting or extremely bright and disturbing. To get the right balance of colour, contrast, and brightness you need to keep a few things in mind.
Tips for Lighting Up your Home
- Tackle Each Room
The first thing to do is to address the lighting needs of each room. Fund out how much natural light penetrates every room and choose your bulbs based on your requirements. The bedrooms won’t require as much light as the study, for instance. You could install lights with dimmers in the bedroom so you can adjust the settings depending on your preference. Compact Fluorescent lights are ideal for use in the kitchen. They’re great for use over the kitchen counter because they evenly light up any space.
- Creating Ambient Light
You can create ambient lighting by using overhead lights with incandescent light bulbs, fluorescent bulbs or LED’s.
Incandescent lights are cheap but they don’t last long. Fluorescent lights are a better alternative but they don’t light up instantly. Besides, they contain mercury, so you have to dispose of them carefully.
The most environment-friendly bulb available is the light emitting diode (LED). LED’S last long, they don’t heat up as much as traditional bulbs, and they consume less power. Their only drawback is that they sometimes come at a high price and they’re not always easily available.
- Installing Accent Lights
Do you have a favourite painting you’d like to showcase in your house? Maybe it’s an indoor plant or an artefact. Whatever the item, you can choose wall mounted or floor lamps to accent certain things in your home. They should be three times as bright as the main overhead light in the room. Accent lights highlight the colours of the object and they add shadows, thereby making the area look interesting.
- Adding Task Lights
The right task lights will protect your eyes from strain when you’re working in your home office or kitchen. When it comes to the kitchen, look for pendant lights, track lights, under cabinet lights and downlights. They will give you enough lighting to cook, clean and entertain.
If you’re thinking about buying task lights for your home office, find table lamps or adjustable floor lamps. They should offer clean and clear lighting that won’t interfere with your work. Halogens and LED’s are the best for this purpose.
Automated Lighting Systems
If you want to light up your driveway or your stairways before you even get home, get in touch with Automation Associates. We are the leading home automation experts in New Zealand. If you need automated systems to control your lights, alarms, appliances and electronics, we can help.
Our technicians are highly quailed and certified by the NZ Ministry of Justice. We can secure your home with the latest home security systems and give you access to all your electronic systems through your phone. Whether you want to integrate your home theatre with your phone or install multi-room audio systems, we can do it all for you.
Call us on 09 377 3778 to have a friendly chat or look up our services online.
