| Many times good interior design counts on a certain kind of sleight-of-hand: The very best job is the one you don't notice, because it doesn't call attention to itself. |
| Good lighting, in a home or business, is one of those things that's invisible - if it's done well. You only notice the lighting of a room if it's too bright or too dim, not if it's just right. |
| When thinking about lighting, first, consider Function, Mood, and Harmony. You have to think about what the function of each room is, decide what mood you want to create, and consider how the different lighting types will harmonize in any given room. |
| Consider first the various functions of the lighting you will provide. Most importantly, you need illumination in certain areas of the room for specific tasks, such as reading, writing or playing a musical instrument. This type of lighting is referred to as task lighting. |
| In addition, you need sufficient overall illumination so people can simply see where they're going, and so they don't trip over that great furniture that you have carefully placed in the rooms. This general lighting is referred to as ambient lighting, which is the overall lighting that permeates the entire room. |
| Of course, it's hard to separate the function of the lighting from the function of the room, and the two should work together. For example, if the function of a home study is to provide a place for reading, working on the computer, and sitting at a desk, you want to have lighting that will help with those functions; you'd want some kind of soft ambient lighting, with reading lamps strategically placed. |
| But there's much more to lighting a room than just functionality. Lighting can also create influence a mood in three different ways. |
| First, the general illumination can strongly influence the mood of a room. A brightly lit room projects a positive, upbeat mood. A darker room is more intimate and romantic. One mistake many people make in lighting their homes is to have only one extreme or the other: so much light that you need sunglasses, or just a dim candle. |
| Remember that there is an important middle range in lighting: you should try playing with this range to see what works best for different situations. When giving a dinner party, for example, you want light which is bright enough so that your guests can see what's on the dinner plate, but soft enough so they don't feel they're about to perform surgery on their roast beef. Often a combination of candlelight and lamps is good in this situation. |
| Second, the lighting fixtures themselves express a mood. Some fixtures are traditional, some contemporary. Some are lavish and ornate, some are starkly simple. As with the furniture you select, the style of the lighting fixtures should be suitable in mood to the rest of the decor. |
| Third, you can provide accents of light in specific parts of a room for no functional reason, but simply because they will add a dramatic touch. For example, you might shine light up through the foliage of a tropical plant, producing an interesting interplay of lights and shadows. |
| In short, then, you want the mood lighting of any home to enhance whatever mood it is you're trying to achieve, by using the natural ambient light and then enhancing it in a variety of ways. |
| The third guideline is Harmony, and this is where everything about Function and Mood come together. |
| The importance of harmony in a room cannot be overstated. Just imagine a living room with an overstuffed, ornately carved sofa and an ultra-modern end table. They just wouldn't go together. |
| Just as you want the other elements of a room to harmonize, so to the different lighting elements should act together in harmony to produce an interesting yet unified effect. |
| The unity that's achieved in harmony, however, does not mean monotony. You can add variety by using different types of fixtures for different tasks, by having illumination flow in different directions, by having fixtures at different heights, and by providing different levels of intensity of light. |
| Of course, variety does not mean a crazy-quilt effect. All the different types of lighting you use in a room must work together in harmony. |
| * Reprinted with permission from a monthly edition of the Sheffield School of Interior Design's Web site www.sheffield.edu. |
