What to Consider When Designing Your Own Lighting Setup

Something that’s arguably the most overlooked aspect of good lighting in your home or business is the actual design phase. Lighting is only ever going to be as good as it’s planned to be, making the essential planning stage of any lighting design a massive part of your success. 

For this very reason, many folks prefer to hire separate lighting designers for their homes when building or renovating. This is especially true for businesses as well, with good lighting design being seen as crucial to the long-term health of both the business and employees. 

What separates good lighting from drab or average lighting goes far beyond the simple aesthetic and is often based on the effects it has on us. Good lighting should improve your mood, making sleeping easier and even contribute towards greater levels of productivity. Poor lighting will often do the exact opposite. 

More often than not, however, lighting design is a pretty daunting journey to take. There are many rules and styles, with much of the design process changing up depending on the surrounding architecture and decor. This, of course, makes creating your own successful lighting plan or design seem near impossible, with many choosing to eschew the whole idea entirely. 

Thankfully, in the age of the internet, information is pretty freely available. As a result, good lighting design is not as difficult for the budding home renovator as it had previously been. In this guide, we’re going to go through some of the basic principles of lighting design that most professional lighting designers will be familiar with. This guide will also be super handy for those who may have already hired a specialist and are looking to avoid common mistakes in the design and planning process.

The Early Bird Gets The Worm

The reality of lighting design, and the planning involved, is that the earlier you begin, the better the final result. This point is so vital that if you only take one piece of wisdom from this article, it should be this one. 

Arguably, the single biggest mistake you could make when planning your lighting setup is not having a plan before you start. Ideally, you want your lighting designed as early as possible and, importantly, alongside your interior decor. 

Planning your lighting so early also affords you the time to make sure you have other elements of your project sorted out as well, making it easy to avoid any problems that could compromise your final result.

Make Your Money Work For You

No matter how big or small, everyone has a budget for remodeling or building a new home. Allocating that budget early and efficiently is probably the best way to make sure your lighting design is executed as well as it can be. 

The best way to start with your lighting plan is to decide your budget and then make sure you’re clear on how much you’re looking to spend from the get-go. If you’re planning your own lighting design, this will be valuable as it will give you as much time to deal with potential mistakes or unforeseen issues in the building process. If you’re working with a professional lighting designer, then this will make it far easier for them to maximize your budget as much as possible. 

If you don’t have a clear idea of what your budget will look like, then speaking to your lighting designer may be the second-best approach. This will give you a good idea of what path to take for your home or business and decide on the most realistic option when thinking about your budget. 

Year-Round Solutions

A lot of the time, when we speak about the value of lighting design in the home, we often talk about it in terms of day-to-day issues. 

Daylight is a massive part of modern design, and with good reason. Daylight is bright, clean, and an essential light source for maintaining good mental health. The only problem with daylight is that it’s only around during the day. Once the sun sets, daylight becomes about as useful as a lighter-than-air paperweight. 

If you live in a state that features some particularly dark winters, where daylight becomes less of a fixture in the day, then planning your lighting design to factor in these conditions is enormous. If your successful, your lighting setup will be as helpful during a sunny summer afternoon as it is on a cold winter night. 

In the case of a steel barn light, this type of solution can be relatively simple. Barn-style and farmhouse-style lights are exceptionally suited to the rigors of year-round lighting changes and can make the most of even the harshest conditions. 

Lights, such as our Inglewood ceiling light and our Gardena wall-mounted light, are perfect solutions to residential and commercial properties. They provide a fantastic amount of light that can be relied on year-round. Steel fixtures, such as our lights, are the best for withstanding different conditions – from searing heat to blinding cold, due to their rugged construction and durable powder coating. 

Keeping an Open Mind

Approaching your lighting setup and design is a difficult task. There is a lot of planning required and a ton of different reasons why something won’t work compared to the reason it will. 

As a result, it’s vital to have an open mind when going through your planning phase. The ideal lighting setup is not about being the best available but about being the right one. The advantage of our other points is that you’ll be able to make changes and adjustments as you go, and keeping an open mind about how to figure out your best solution to any potential problems is crucial. 

While it’s valuable to have a well-thought-out plan of what you hope to achieve, it’s also beneficial to make sure you can make changes to create the best result. This point is massively important when working with a professional lighting designer, as it makes the entire process of planning, budgeting, and designing your lights as easy and effective as possible. 

That’s it for our most valuable tips when creating your own lighting design plan! 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.