My current lighting class is almost over. Here’s some of what I learned.
First, the traditional lighting that most of us have in our homes – surface-mounted ceiling lights plus a virtual lighting store of table and floor lights – is terrible. The ceiling fixtures glare and create unflattering light on everyone and everything. The table lamps light the tables, but that’s about it.
Case in point: The lighting in my living room now consists of five table lamps (we just kept adding them because it was never light enough) and a ceiling fan with a light globe attached. We never turn on that ceiling globe because it is blinding, so we rely on the five table lamps to light the space. But it still feels dark, even when they are all turned on. When I measured the footcandle levels in in the room, I learned that it really was dark, majorly dark.
Second, although there are a lot of ways to successfully illuminate a house, wading through the enormous selection of luminaires available on the market is daunting. (See my post on indoor lighting for a sampling of firms that sell lamps or luminaires.) These products don’t come cheap either. To fix the lighting problems in my house I’d have to redo every room, tearing out walls, snaking wires, patching, and repainting. If I had time and money, I’d do it; I certainly can’t afford to hire someone else. I hate to think that good lighting may be one of the privileges of the rich.
Third, lighting involves a intense numbers game to distinguish among and choose from the various kinds of lamps on the market suitable for residential installation – from the ubiquitous incandescent A lamp, through halogen, compact fluorescent, and linear fluorescent, to the newer fiber optic and LED lights. Each one of these comes with its own beam spread, color temperature, color rendering index, base type, and photometric data. And then there are all the calculations – watts, volts, footcandles, footlamberts, etc – that one must do, or at least understand, to get the lighting just right. I’m good at numbers, but the sheer volume of all this information has me floored. The lighting professionals may have it all down (plus they have access to computer programs that do the calculating), but if I don’t have a handle on it after two lighting classes, then certainly the un-schooled homeowner hasn’t got a chance. (Commercial lighting is another beast altogether, with still more lamp choices. Because I chose a residential project for my current class project, I didn’t even touch on commercial this semester.)
So what can ordinary people do? Learn a bit about lighting design. Here’s a quick primer.
But first, some terminology. A “lamp” is the trade term for a light bulb. A “luminaire” is the term for a light fixture, often called a lamp in common parlance (e.g. table lamp, floor lamp). Luminaires are designed for specific lamp types, but each type may have a wide range of choices in wattage, beam spreads, color temperature, and ability to render color accurately. A “footcandle” is a measure of the amount of light that reaches a surface.
The main thing to remember is that good lighting consists of four different types or functions of lighting – ambient, accent, task, and “sparkle.” All of these need to be present in a given room or space to some degree, though sometimes one fixture can serve more than one function. The layers of different types of lighting create contrast, and that is what makes lighting exciting.
- Ambient light is the background light that illuminates the whole room enough to eliminate dark corners and allow you to move through the space safely and perform general tasks. Whether this is low or bright depends on what kind of space it is – it might be lowish in a dining room, for example, but high in a wood shop. Good ambient lighting isn’t obvious. A bright ceiling downlight, for example, may light the room, but it glares in your eyes and creates unflattering shadows. A better choice for ambient lighting is to direct light up to the ceiling and let it reflect back into your room. You can do this with a built-in light cove near the top of your wall, with floor fixtures or wall sconces with opaque shades that shine only up, or even by placing small uplight fixtures on top your bookshelves.
- Accent lighting is more concentrated lighting, usually directed at specific objects or room details, such as artwork, sculpture, a column, or a plant. Accent lights draw your eye toward the illuminated spot and create interest, but they don’t always provide good ambient light. Most track lighting and some recessed ceiling canisters make good accent lights, with the proper lamp. The beam spread of the lamp you put in your accent fixture will make a difference in the effect you get.
- Task lighting provides light to successfully do specific or concentrated tasks, such as reading, working with tools, and cooking. Task lighting is brighter than ambient light and is directed where it’s needed, on the work surface. Here is where all those table lamps come into play. They are fine task lights, so long as they are placed so the light doesn’t shine in your eyes and the light is bright enough to see your work. An opaque or dark shade on your task lighting luminaire helps prevent glare and, so long as your ambient light is provided by other sources, won’t make your room too dark.
- Sparkle is the lighting icing on the cake. For example, tiny white holiday lights and candles add sparkle to a space, as does light directed on a piece of crystal. Although sparkle is less important than the other three, it adds a feeling of liveliness and delight.
Even a couple of small changes in lighting can make a big difference in the feel of a room. Here’s what I’m going to try in my house until I have the time, energy, and money to chop up my ceilings and walls to run some new circuits.
- Buy a bunch of small plug-in spotlights to place here and there. For instance, one on top the bookcase aimed toward the ceiling of my living room should provide some much-needed ambient light. One on the floor shining up behind a plant should do the same and yield some interesting shadow patterns.
- Check my existing recessed ceiling fixtures to see if I’ve put the correct type of lamp in them so they’ll function as the accent lights they were meant to be.
- Hang a big square of light-colored fabric below some of those glare bombs in my ceilings to try to diffuse them (far enough away so it doesn’t get hot).
- Replace some of the ceiling downlights with tracks or fixtures that direct the light upward.
The most important thing I learned, however, is how crucial lighting is. An otherwise fabulous space will be boring in the wrong lighting and, conversely, a well-designed, layered lighting plan can perk up even the plainest space. Lighting breathes life into architecture.