Top Indoor Lighting Ideas for Your Home

We all have a favored lighting when it comes to taking pictures. Why? Because different lighting can make or break a great picture. Believe it or not, the same goes for your home. Warm lights will make your home look cozy and calm while white lights will give off a refreshed and bright feel. It’s no secret that lighting is central to any good room design and different lighting effects can make the same room quite different. The importance is often overlooked.

Lighting in a home serves one of two purposes: providing ambient, accent, or task lighting, and adding to the decor in a room. Indoor lighting is something that is so easy to get wrong and so hard to get right. If you get it right, everything works so well that it’s not really noticeable and kind of blends into the background of your home. However, if you get it wrong you will definitely notice – and so will everyone else! The good news is that there are some concrete tips and tricks that anyone can learn to incorporate some of the top indoor lighting ideas for your home.

Lighting for the Lifestyle of Your Space

The first and foremost aspect to look at when deciding on what kind of lighting you’d like for your space is solidifying what lifestyle you want your space to emanate, then also considering what your space will be used for, and how that lighting will work with the architecture and surrounding environment of the space as well.

For formal modern spaces with color schemes of light greys and off whites paired with luxurious upholstery and high finishes, crystal and brass chandeliers are best to continue the feel of craftsmanship and sophistication. For tables, choose polished lamps in brass or nickel to accent the greys and dark wood finishes.

For a casual natural space with lighter palettes of whites and beiges, any chandelier or lamp with an organic, bright feel will be sure to complement natural wood finishes in the room’s pieces, especially alongside light weathered wood and casual slipcovered sofas.

For a more urban space, bronze and brass chandeliers and industrial lamps work well with the room’s stone and grey color scheme, especially in the presence of leather and mid-century modern pieces with dark wood finishes and brass, bronze, and iron accents.

Ceiling Lighting

Now that you have a better idea of the figuring out your style and use while keeping the architecture and surroundings in mind, you can move on to the actual lights themselves.

The first element of indoor lighting design includes ceiling lighting. There is such a wide range of different ceiling lights that work well for different functions in different rooms. For most rooms, ceiling lighting will be the base of the lighting for the entire room. This is especially true for rooms like kitchens, dining rooms, seating areas, and hallways.

Here are some of the different types of ceiling lights that you need to know in order to provide the right lighting for your home:

Chandeliers: Chandeliers are gorgeous lighting focal points that can glam up a space in an instant! And while you might think that chandeliers have to include traditional crystal, that’s not the case. We offer many modern-styled chandeliers that can work well with a variety of different lifestyles. Although it’s easy to just go find a look that you love, you also need to think about width and height when shopping for chandeliers. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

For dining rooms, make sure that the lowest part of the chandelier hangs 30” above the center of the table. Also, make sure that the diameter of the piece is ½ the width of the dining table.
A cool chandelier trick for other rooms is to add the length and width of the room together in feet in order to get the width that your chandelier should be in inches!
Whenever hanging a chandelier, make sure that it is at least seven feet above the floor to allow for enough clearance for your tallest family members and friends! This means that smaller ceiling heights need shorter chandeliers.

Pendant lights: Pendant lights are best hung in pairs or trios. Pendant lights are great lighting features to place above surfaces like kitchen islands, dining room tables, bedroom side tables, etc. Pendant lighting is great if you are looking for something simpler than a chandelier and provide light across a longer surface. While you might think that you can’t have pendant lights without a high ceiling, there are mini pendant lights that are great for a variety of different spaces. Recessed lighting: Recessed lighting involves “can” lights that are placed within the ceiling to provide a simple and versatile light source to a variety of different spaces.
Track lighting: Track lights are modern lighting features that can be repositioned depending on where you want to focus the overhead light. Track lighting is great to spot light different parts of a room or even highlight different features.
Ceiling mounted lights: These lighting fixtures are attached to the ceiling that sit higher and are simpler than some of the other types of ceiling fixtures. Ceiling mounted lights are great options for spaces with lower ceilings like hallways and bedrooms. There are two different types of ceiling mounted lights:

Flush: Mounted directly to the ceiling and come in a variety of different shapes and styles.
Semi-flush: Similar to pendant lights without hanging as low.

Wall Sconces

The next type of interior lighting that you need for your home are wall sconces. If you are short on floor space or ceiling height in a city apartment, wall sconces are a great way to add ambiance and bright lighting to your space. They are also a great way to highlight artwork in a room. Wall lights are extremely versatile and can work in any room regardless of the style and vibe. There are very traditional wall sconces that look like they belong in an 18th century Victorian home, and then we have the modern wall sconces in our various collections that can match anything from a city loft to a coastal getaway. The height that you should mount wall sconces varies depending on the room and function of the lighting but will generally vary between 60” to 72”.

Floor Lamps

Floor lamps are a great way to add light to every corner of a room! The great thing about floor lamps is that you can pretty much put them anywhere. That being said, you might not want to put a random floor lamp in an area without any other furniture or pieces around it. Since floor lamps are usually pretty big in scale, it’s a good idea to offset them with other surrounding pieces like chairs, ottomans, shelves, etc. Another consideration in the placement of floor lamps regards the flow of the room. Don’t put a floor lamp somewhere near a high-traffic area that would easily be tripped over or bumped into. Also don’t put a floor lamp in a place where it would obstruct the view to the television, sofa, or other places where people would look while seated.

Here are some different styles of floor lamps that you should consider for the best indoor lighting for your home:

Ambient floor lamps
Reading floor lamps
Uplight floor lamps
Torchiere floor lamps
Arc floor lamps

Make sure to choose a floor lamp that will fit the function you need while also blending in with the style of other pieces within your home.

Table Lamps

Table lamps might sound like just lights that go on tables, but they are really so much more than that! They are a great way to add dimension, height, and balance to your room. No table is complete without a lamp, but finding the right lamp for your table and space can seem like a challenge. Here are some tips to follow when finding table lamps for your home:

The height of the piece of furniture and the lamp with the lampshade should be between 58” and 64”.
Tall ceilings should be paired with tall lamps. Taller tables should be paired with short lamps. Shorter tables should be paired with tall lamps.
The base of a table lamp should fit well within the table and still leave room for stylish accessories like candles, books, picture frames, and decorative boxes.
A table lamp should be placed somewhere with easy access so that you can turn it on and off as needed.
A table lamp should also be placed near an outlet so that you don’t have random cords running all over the place.

Types of Indoor Lighting

Now that we’ve talked about different indoor lighting features, it’s a good idea to talk about the different types of indoor lighting so that you can get a complete understanding of indoor lighting. There are three different types of lighting that you need to keep in mind when considering light features for your home:

Ambient lighting: Ambient lighting is the general type of lighting that aims to provide enough brightness to be able to walk around a space comfortably. Ambient lighting prevents dark spaces and is a key component of any lighting plan.

Accent lighting: Accent lighting is the type of lighting that is used to highlight different features in a room that you want people to be drawn to. Some things you might want to accent include artwork, wall décor, and architectural features.

Task lighting: Task lighting provides lighting for a specific task that is done in the area like reading, writing, cooking, etc. So be sure to evaluate what you do in your home and where to ensure that you can provide enough task lighting where you need to.

Lighting Temperatures

An underrated but important component of indoor lighting is lighting temperature. This area is easily overlooked but can really make a room feel totally wrong if the lighting temperature isn’t right. Light temperature is measured in Kelvins (K) and there are generally three different ranges for indoor light bulbs that you need to be aware of:

Warm white (2700-3200K): This warm range is great for creating cozy spaces and is ideal for bedrooms.
Neutral white (3200-4200K): This mid-range temperature is great for providing natural light to common spaces like living rooms and dining rooms.
Cool white (4200-5000K): This cool range is great for areas that need really bright light like kitchens and bathrooms.

Hopefully, all of this information has left you feeling totally confident and ready to create a lighting plan that works perfectly in your home. You will need to incorporate a variety of different lighting options for different purposes in order to have well-lit living spaces that are inviting and functional. Besides style, it’s also important to keep in mind the placement of light as well as temperature. By incorporating quality light fixtures into your home you will be sure to create a space that everyone will love to spend time in.