The use of light is central to interior design. Light makes a room feel spacious, warm and open. During daytime poor light creates poor moods and makes a home feel stuffy and dreary. During the evenings soothing warm light makes a home feel warm and comfortable. To create a beautiful room you have to pay attention to the light and the types of lighting that make the most impact. Here we explore the use of light to create ambience in your home.
Natural Light
Natural sunlight is the most important kind. Crucially it promotes the production of vitamin D and improves your mood through the releases of endorphins. When we start the interior design process we look at natural light first. You might think this is as simple as saying – let’s put in a bigger window but there’s more to it.
Firstly window placement is pivotal as you want to maximise the amount of daylight you receive – waking up to sunlight is a wonderful mood booster and gentle afternoon sun is relaxing. If possible we like to add windows to capture as much light as possible. Floor to ceiling windows are the pinnacle of decadence in this respect but a lot can still be achieved with sky lights and normal windows.
Where the building doesn’t permit enough natural light we need to supplement this with artificial lights, colour and mirrors.
Artificial Light
In traditional home design there is a central light supplemented with lamps and other side lights. Thanks to modern technologies though we now have access to a plethora of excellent lighting choices.
Spotlights are the ideal choice to bring focus to particular areas of a room and accent lighting lets you illuminate objects and art to create focal points. But to make a room “feel” lighter you’ll need to have higher intensity lighting.
Mood lighting is where interior design gets serious as you want to have adjustable lighting that is ideally hidden from view. Backlighting in cupboards and on shelves and recessed LED spotlights can be used to great effect to create a warm feeling in any room. Adjustable lights at floor and ceiling level create a wonderful ambience – particularly when combined with mirrors.
Colour
White and light colours are the easiest “trick” to improving the light and space of a room. They reflect light to a degree which increases the feeling of space in an area. They make a room feel open to the natural world. If you don’t find white walls appealing you can add lighter colours to your furnishings with use of drapes, throws and vibrant art and furniture – all of which will create the illusion of light.
Mirrors
Where natural light is subpar mirrors make for an excellent way to increase light. As you can see in many of our interior designs liberal use of mirrors on walls and shelves increases the visual space of an interior design. The reflected light makes each room feel bigger and lighter.
Coloured Light
One interesting way to quickly adjust the ambience of a room is to use different colour light. White light most closely resembles daylight but in the evenings you may want to integrate softer coloured lights – for example blue neons or red light to create a softer feel to a room or to create a modern image. LED strip lighting is a good example of this as it boasts many different colour configurations – allowing you to quickly adapt any room.
For any help with luxury interior design contact – we are happy to advise on the best practice in interior design.
