Lighting plays a key role and has a great impact on any room in your house beyond its obvious function of providing illumination. When remodelling your home, you should give more attention to choosing your lighting. Other than its practical purpose, the right lighting can transform a room and even an entire home.
Light can affect or enhance particular factors like the size of a room, wall colour, and wall decor. To have an idea on which lighting plan would work best for your home, look into professionally executed lighting projects online for inspiration.
Below are four factors which can be influenced by the lighting elements you choose for your home.
1. Colour
Since the eyes see colours differently depending on the amount of light shining on the surface, the lighting elements you choose can affect the colour of your room.
Lighting has the ability to highlight various paint colours and make them stand out. And because of this, you have to make careful considerations to ensure your lighting and paint-colour choices complement each other correctly.
Here’s what you need to know about natural light and room placement or positioning.
- Rooms Facing East: Great for orange, red and yellow colours. Before noon, the light in these rooms is warm and yellow. Then later in the day, the light turns blue.
- Rooms Facing West: The night light in these rooms is warm make them look inviting. However, during the morning, colours look dull due to the lack of light.
- Rooms Facing North: You’ll find cool and blueish light in these rooms. In better lighting, stronger colours will show up.
- Rooms Facing South: You can bring out the best of cool and warm colours through the light of these rooms. You’ll get the best out of your room choice by taking advantage of the lighting in the rooms facing south.
2. Space
To make the most out of any room in your house, lighting is the key. Many homeowners struggle with how to make a small space feel large and open. While it’s impossible to alter the actual size of a room without incurring extra costs, the right lighting can do the trick.
Natural light can immediately make any room seem larger. But with those rooms with fairly small windows, this can be quite a challenge. An alternative would be to draw people’s attention upwards. When the eye moves vertically rather than horizontally, the room will seem larger.
To maximize any space, place your light fixtures further up on the wall. Lighting elements that hang high enough can create the illusion of a bigger space.
3. Productivity
Any room which is poorly lit can reduce your sense of productivity. Dim lights are the primary culprit as bad lighting can strain your eyes, and can also cause headaches. When lighting is insufficient, you’ll force your eyes to work harder for you to see properly.
Dim lights can result in a lack of focus and drowsiness which can gravely impact your efficiency.
4. Mood
A room’s lighting can definitely impact a person’s mood. The natural light that filters through your windows has a peaceful effect on your mood. It’s actually no coincidence if you find yourself smiling on sunny days since lighting has that kind of effect. However, poor artificial lighting and lack of light can also trigger depression.
Here’s how your home lighting can affect your emotions.
- Heightens Emotions – Brighter lighting lets us experience both negative and positive emotions. But when it comes to both types of emotions, the reactions of people are more extreme under brighter lights.
- Energizes – During the day, blue light can enhance your energy level and make you alert. The bluish light enables you to complete tasks quickly and more efficiently.
- Affects Appetite – Studies show that lighting can affect how we eat, and how quickly. You may have noticed that you tend to eat more slowly in restaurants with soft and dim lighting. Researchers believe that this is due to the fact that softer lighting relaxes people, and makes them think twice about their food selections. Conversely, fast food chains with bright lights seem to give a cue for people to eat faster.
Most homeowners don’t put much thought into lighting, preferring to just do it all by themselves. But to always be in your best disposition, make sure to get an expert lighting company to advise you on the best lighting strategy for your home.
Now that you know how lighting can affect your home and the people in it, see if you can make use of cost-effective materials such as LED lights for energy-efficiency. LED lights to use 50% less electricity than traditional fluorescent, incandescent, and halogen options.
Don’t choose your home lighting elements for mere aesthetics and functionality. Think of the costs you’ll incur in the future and opt for lighting materials that will help reduce energy consumption and make you feel comfortable as you go about your day-to-day tasks.
Author Bio:
Ajay Awtaney is the co-founder of Nakashi General Trading LLC, an electrical lighting company in Dubai catering to the needs of clients and projects requiring quality lighting products and solutions. Nakashi General Trading LLC today is an approved vendor of reputable organizations (Jumeirah, Engineering Office, Meraas, Musanadah, and Thumbay, to name a few) for supplying lighting products.
