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Often the thing that separates good lighting design from bad is knowledge. So being thoroughly prepared and having the best picture of what you’re getting yourself into will become huge tools going forward.
In the words of Sun Tzu – “Wars are not won with armies of soldiers, but with armies of spies.” Therefore, being able to know exactly what to look forward to in your pursuit of the perfect home setup cannot be understated in its importance.
As lighting experts ourselves, we’re huge fans of knowledge in our industry and like to have our customers and clients as informed as possible. To that end, we’ve compiled a collection of some of the most frequently asked questions regarding our own business.
However, that doesn’t tell the whole story. So in this blog entry, we’re also going to go through some critical questions we think clients and customers should be asking, both themselves and their suppliers/installers. These will cover the more tricky parts of the home and business lighting and hopefully illuminate our readers on achieving the best results possible!
So, without further ado, let’s get straight to it!
When Should I Plan My Lighting?
This one is pretty straightforward and, unfortunately, not asked enough!
The simple answer is – as early as possible. Lighting is a difficult thing to visualize in your mind entirely. How light behaves in an environment is almost impossible to plan to perfection, so making your initial plans for your home or business should happen as early as conceivably possible.
This helps in a couple of different ways. For one, it allows you the most amount of time to adapt and ensure your vision can come to life. Again, it’s super hard to get a clear idea of how light will behave in your home. Everything from wall texture to windows will affect your final results. As a result, it pays to have a plan early, allowing you to adapt to new information as it happens and not be stuck with a subpar plan.
As well as that, planning early allows you to be more resilient psychologically. Building or renovating a home or business is a long and arduous process with many competing interests. Reducing the mental taxation of changing your plans or coming up with new ones can be huge in the long run and make your journey a lot more smooth as a result.
What Are Light Layers?
Light layers are a pretty popular topic in our blogs, and for a good reason. Good lighting design is defined by how well you can use your lighting layers and when and where to use them.
Simply put, there are three layers of light for every room. These are:
Ambient Lighting – Which is used to blanket your room in a base of usable light essentially. This is the most general form of lighting and also the most common.
Task Lighting – This style is designed to be far more focused in approach and is often used to create a clear enough environment to make completing intense tasks safer and more accessible.
Accent Lighting – The final lighting style is designed to add personality to a space. This is where the “art’ of lighting comes into play, with accent lighting often being used to dictate a mood or vibe within an area.
Just about every room can benefit from all three of these layers working in conjunction with each other and can often result in stunning displays that turn mundane spaces into something exceptional.
What is the Best Light Temperature?
Colour temperature is the measure of brightness and intensity of your light source, and it’s measured in Kelvins (K).
Typically, homes and businesses will have different lighting needs, meaning that the lighting temperature for each building will differ dramatically as well. This is also the case for other rooms in the home, with kitchen lighting feeling very different from lounge or dining room lighting.
Generally speaking, home lighting is typically much warmer in tone and will normally be recommended to be around 2700K to 3000K to create a warm and inviting atmosphere.
Conversely, white cooler light is best for the office or other business environments. The light temperature for these areas will usually range between 3500K to 5000K, making everything as straightforward and comfortable as possible by mimicking ideal daylight conditions.
Regardless of what you choose, we highly recommend choosing Light Emitting Diodes (LED) as your bulb of choice. LEDs are cheaper to run, safer for the home, and are capable of a wide range of different temperatures depending on what you’re looking for.
How Important is Lighting in Designing My Home?
Humans are visual creatures, and light is the medium through which we can see. As a result, it’s evident that lighting will play a massive part in how your home or business looks once everything is installed.
Aside from the obvious benefit of providing adequate visibility, lighting can also transform a space and create a new way to perceive the area in a room. Sure, other features, such as wall color, mirrors, windows, and architectural design features, will have a significant impact, but lighting is arguably the most influential.
For example, it may be worth it to design the space to be as bright and inviting as possible in a kitchen. This makes it easier to cook and prepare food without hurting yourself and creates a perception of a clean and tidy environment, with everything clearly visible.
On the other hand, taking a similar approach to a bedroom as a kitchen would be strange and ultimately unpleasant, where warmer tones and softer light sources might be more appropriate. Bedrooms with a lot of cool and bright lighting often come across as very hospital-esque and can be deeply unappealing as a result.
If you need help making the right choice of lighting for your home or business, then contact our friendly team at Steel Lighting Co., our friendly team of experts would be more than happy to give some advice and recommendations on what kind of steel barn light can best suit your home or business needs.
