The 5 Crucial Steps You Must Follow to Make a Great Home Lighting Plan
Lights are a fundamental part of your home's character. They can set the mood, keep you safe, and help you carry out whatever tasks belong in each room. Unfortunately, installing lights without a plan can lead to over or under-lighting and look awful. Luckily this article will explain what a lighting plan is, what they entail, and the best way to make one.
A Good Lighting Plan Answers 3 Fundamental Questions
Whether you’re redecorating a single room or designing your dream home from the ground up, a lighting plan can help you figure out the best way to illuminate your living space. Architects, interior designers, and regular homeowners can all use these plans to meet their goals. In general, the professionals will develop them with the help of a detailed floor plan.
A solid lighting plan will answer three fundamental questions –
- What types of lights should I buy?
- How many of them do I need?
- Where should I put them?
Effective Lighting Has 3 Layers
Lights placed explicitly to help you do things are called task lights. For example, it is good to place lights over the kitchen counter, face height next to the bathroom mirror, and in closets.
Ambient lighting assists navigation and safety. In addition, the best ambient light level gives visual comfort – it "feels" right as you move through the room.
Cleverly placed lights that draw the eye and add style are called accent lights. They bring creativity and ambiance to the room and can highlight art, textures, plants, or anything else meant to be a focus.
Follow These 5 Steps to Make Your Lighting Plan
Once you know what the 3 different types of light do, you can start to make your lighting plan. Like the rest of your living space, your plan will be unique to you. Therefore, these steps are guides – they will look different for everyone.
Step 1 – Make a Floor Plan to Scale
The floor plan you use should be complete. Ensure that it includes doors, windows (maybe note how much light comes through), and even furniture.
Step 2 – Consider the Tasks in Each Room
Label the floorplan with the significant tasks you perform in each room. In addition, you should specify how much light you require and how big an area it will cover.
Step 3 – Determine the Effect You Want to Achieve
Make a mood board to help you figure out your ambient and accent lighting. A mood board is a collage that displays pictures or samples that capture the moods you want to express. They can have furniture, color palettes, textures, entire rooms, light fixtures, etc.
Add ambient and accent elements to your floorplan once you understand the effect you want. Remember that there are many types of fixtures to choose from! Try to specify what you think will work best in each area – pendants, LED track lighting, wall washers, table lamps, etc.
Step 4 – Define Your Budget
New construction homeowners often run out of money by the time they get to lighting. So they usually default to installing a bunch of downlighting and little else. It works, and it's inexpensive, but it's boring. There are expensive and cheap versions of almost every type of light fixture, so set yourself a budget to help narrow down your selection.
Step 5 – Shop for Fixtures
Well-chosen lighting is an effective mood-setter that delivers a stylistic punch. It's time to go shopping! Fit the fixtures you want to the functions marked on your floorplan. Remember not to rely on the fixtures themselves for all the style – your placement and intensity will do a lot of the work.
Our Plan, Your Style
A well-thought-out lighting plan can help you layer the lights in your home in a functional, comfortable way and make your personal style pop. First, however, developing a plan requires knowing how task, ambient, and accent lighting work. Once you do, our five essential steps will walk you through the process.
