Whether you’re building a home from the ground up or doing a major remodeling project, lighting is probably somewhere on your list of things to think about. Since you use lighting every day in different situations, it should probably be at the top of your list of things to consider, actually. Unfortunately, many homeowners don’t think enough about their home lighting and end up with inefficient arrangements that are inconvenient in daily life. Here are some ideas that can make your home lighting more efficient.
Have different lights for different tasks. Most people don’t like the glare of the overhead light on all the time, but you have to have at least a bit of light in a room most of the time. You should just set up different lighting for different tasks. For instance, when you’re preparing food in the kitchen, you need lots of bright lights, but when you’re hosting a dinner party, you might just need under-cabinet lights for some ambiance.
When you’re designing lighting for different situations, though, make sure to tie it all into a central switch location. This is one of the things that people mess up most when thinking about their lighting. If you have to walk to five different places in a room to turn on all the lights, your plan is inefficient. You should have a control switch for all the major rooms in your home. To supplement this, you might also have a switch at each entrance to, say, the living room, so that you don’t have to fumble around to get to the main control switches.
Lighting is a major way to differentiate one area of the home from another, especially in today’s world of open floor plans. It can be convenient to have lighting that works in both the living room and the dining room or kitchen, but this won’t fit the way you really live. Instead, design an efficient system that can separate different areas from one another while still being convenient to use.
If you aren’t sure how to put these basic principles of efficient home lighting design into practice, Whitmer’s Lighting can do it for you. This company has years of experience, and it can help with everything from a minor kitchen revamp to a complete home renovation to the planning of a home you haven’t even started building yet.
If you’re intimidated by trying to get your lights in the right spots, don’t be. Whitmer’s can help with everything from the layout of your new lighting to picking out the actual fixtures you want to installing them. Plus, the consultations are free, so you don’t have to worry about paying a fortune up front. Whitmer’s Lighting can look at your home or plan and help you with your lighting issues every step of the way. Not only will your new lighting system be functional, but it will also be beautiful and highly efficient for the way you really live.
