Lighting

Lighting is one aspect of home decoration that often falls by the wayside, but it is actually one of the most important elements in having a comfortable, beautiful home.  Lighting serves many purposes, from helping you to see what you are doing (be it cooking, reading or simply talking with friends) to making a room look larger to highlighting certain features of your home.

Because there are so many different uses for lighting, it is important to provide different levels of lighting for different tasks in each room.  Of course it is important to have overhead or recessed lighting in order to give general light to the entire room, but other types of lighting are useful as well.  Track lighting, which consists of several movable lights around the ceiling are good for illuminating special features in your home.  For instance, you can point track lights at artwork on the walls to make it stand out more.  You should also have floor lamps or table lamps for when you want soft lighting, and not to fill the entire room with general light.  It is also a good idea to have a light available for reading next to every chair.  This can be a table or floor light, or even a sconce on the wall.

If you are trying to brighten up a dark room, there are several tricks.  The first trick for brightening up a room is to add a large mirror on the wall.  A mirror will reflect the light as well as make the room look larger.  You can also update your lampshades to lighter colors that allow more light to pass through or buy bulbs with higher wattage.  You can also purchase uplights, which sit on tip of cabinets or shelves to send light up to the ceiling, which is reflected back down into the room to make it brighter.  Finally, bright white pain reflects light, making your room lighter.

These are just a few simple steps to get you started with improving the lighting in your home.