Interior Design and Decorating Lighting Planning in your Home - The New Room

The New Room Interior Lighting Planning
Before you embark on purchasing or deciding the lights that you prefer, look very closely at the room.

It is essential to have your furniture plan worked out before deciding on the light fittings and fixtures positions.

Allow for some general light, this is a light that is an overall source.

The general light has not had its light focused into a beam or set in a particular direction.

The light shines in all directions from its source without obstruction, glass and translucent shades are included in this.




A central light source on the ceiling providing general light for the room. It does make the room appear small as it does not highlight the corners of the room.

Then allow to highlight focal points with directional light, this is light that is focused and forced to travel in a particular direction by either a reflector or baffle. This may be a spotlight of any sort or a lamp with an opaque shade (not translucent) so that the light goes in a particular direction.





An option to make general light softer in a room is with reflected light, this is light that is bounced off another object usually a wall or a ceiling or it can be part of a fitting or bulb. It comes from a directional light source usually but has the light diffused by the reflection.

Rather than a spotlight shining directly onto an object the light is bounced off a wall or ceiling to subtly and/or softly illuminate rather than the full intensity of directional light.

Uplighters and downlighters are forms of spotlights that rely on the reflected light off the floor or the ceiling, although note that a downlight can be used to illuminate an object directly at a pinch.

Downlights come in all sorts of forms that give a narrow beam that spreads down to the floor. They are recessed or semi recessed and may be a feature or extremely discreet. Some have baffles or reflectors and are able to be angled to direct light to wash a wall i.e. a wall washer.
Uplighters can be freestanding or may be mounted directly to the wall and either fully shrouded or have a translucent shade giving an overall ambient light as well as a reflected light.