Lighting your home properly is a very important consideration. It can have a lot to do with your overall mood and how easily you can accomplish your tasks at home. So let’s discuss the different kinds of lighting that are available, and how you can best use them.

The first step in understanding lighting, is to understand that there are two basic types that are in use in most homes today. The first is incandescent lighting, which is produced by running current through a small wire called a filament. The light that is produced is very bright and warm, and is suitable for almost any task.

The second kind of indoor lighting is called fluorescent lighting, and is produced when electricity passes through a glass tube that has been coated inside and filled with gas. This kind of light is very soft and gentle, but it’s big advantage is that it can produce up to five times as much light from the same amount of electrical current as an incandescent light.

Generally speaking, there are three levels of lighting used in the home depending on what task is being performed. For general relaxing and low-level lighting, 40 – 80 watt incandescent bulbs will work fine. For most general tasks, 100 – 150 watts will suffice. But for very specialized type of work, 180 – 300 watts may be needed.

For reading at home, it’s good to have a floor lamp that is placed behind you and slightly to the left or right. If you’re only going to be reading for a short while, 150 watts should be fine, but for prolonged reading 250 watts will do better to prevent eye strain and fatigue.

To light a desk or worktable, you’ll most likely need plenty of illumination for the work at hand. Most often, it’s best to actually have a small lamp on the desk itself to provide the best quality light. For these kind of tasks, usually a minimum of 200 watts of incandescent light, and 40 watts of fluorescent light will be needed.

In the bathroom, it’s good to have lighting that helps eliminate shadows under your eyes, nose, and chin. That’s often best accomplished with fixtures on each side of the bathroom mirror. Sometimes a fixture that has a series of smaller 25 watt bulbs can be used to good effect. You may also want to consider using some fluorescent lights here that employ soft white tubes for lighting that is most flattering.

In the kitchen, you need concentrated light on the countertops and workstations for best results. Fluorescent strip lighting often works very well under kitchen cabinets to light up your countertops. This kind of lighting tends to be even, with very few shadows, and free of the heat that often accompanies incandescent light.

By planning out your home lighting fixtures in advance and positioning them correctly in each room you can be sure to get the best lighting possible under a wide range of circumstances.

Using the correct lighting fixtures and bulbs throughout your home is a skill that can help you enjoy the time spent at home even more. That’s because home lighting can be useful for two intended purposes, the first being function, and the second being mood.

With that in mind, consider each room in your home and what it is mainly used for. What are the activities that often go on in that room? How much light will be usually needed for those activities? Are there any points of interest in the room that you would really like to draw attention to?

Asking these questions can help you lay out your home lighting design so that it fits both form and function. Most lighting fixtures that you choose for your design will most likely fall into one of three categories, general lighting, task lighting, and accent lighting. Let’s discuss each of these in greater detail.

General lighting is perhaps the kind of lighting that most people are familiar with. It’s very simply the most prominent lighting source in the room, very often an overhead fixture. As its name implies, it provides a general, overall source of light for the entire room. These general type of lighting fixtures can be very simple or very ornate, but their first and foremost job is to provide sufficient lighting for the occupants of the room to be able to move around safely.

The next type of home lighting that we want to consider is called task lighting, and this is an area where many home lighting designs are found to be insufficient. The purpose of task lighting is to help illuminate a specific area for a certain kind of task that will be performed there. For instance, if there is a reading area in a room, it would be very appropriate to have either a floor lamp or a table lamp positioned very close to the seating arrangement with the correct bulb wattage to ensure that a person will be able to read comfortably not only for a few minutes, but even for a prolonged period of time.

Once again, this is where many home lighting designs fall short. Quite often, many folks expect a general lighting fixture for each room to be sufficient for the tasks that are performed there. But this is not always the case, especially with activities that call for focused reading over a period of time, or specialized tasks performed in the kitchen. So the proper use of task lighting can improve your enjoyment and effectiveness of tasks and activities performed at home.

Finally, consider also accent lighting. This kind of lighting fixture is not meant to provide illumination for activities in a specific room, as much as it is meant to focus attention on a particular feature or area of the room that you wish to highlight or set a mood for. A good example of accent lighting is when lights are focused on a painting on a wall. These lights don’t really contribute that much to the overall light level of the room, but they do bring attention to the painting instead, which is what they are designed to do.

There is an almost endless array of lighting fixtures that can be used for all three kinds of lighting, whether it be general, task, or accent lighting. But try to think ahead and plan out each room in your home so that you can use each kind of lighting fixture to its maximum potential.

Custom home lighting requires a blend of art, math, and hard science to make a living space truly exceptional and personalized. Cost efficiency has to be factored into the equation to ensure that a superior level and quality of lighting does not cost an arm and a leg in electrical expenses. Custom home lighting must compliment interior decorating and the daily activities of the family in order to blend harmoniously and seamlessly into the many facets of daily life and entertainment. DIY lighting kits and box store fixtures fall short in many respects when it comes to the finer nuances of this very eclectic and complicated discipline, and they often produce disappointing results that lack long-term viability. Working with a professional team that is licensed in electrical engineering and extensively trained in interior home lighting design, on the other, hand, can produce amazing results when approached with a systematic process that has proven itself viable and sustainable for over 27 years.

Analysis of energy efficiency

With energy efficiency becoming the new buzzword in the lighting industry, custom home lighting really must begin with a careful examination of existing fixtures. Because California has already banned incandescent lighting, a new push is on the way to replace incandescents nationwide in anticipation of similar legislation from Coast to Coast. Many people are retrofitting store-bought fluorescent bulbs to lamps and overhead lights in places like the living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. These lights do save a lot of power and last for many years as promised. Sometimes, however, they do not provide an adequate match to the existing fixtures into which they are installed, and the quality of home lighting may diminish if a proper analysis of the equipment is not conducted by a lighting design professional.

ILD technicians will check existing fixtures and lamps to ensure that they are operating at their highest possible energy efficiency rating and producing a quality of luminance that is aesthetically and functionally appropriate to the lifestyle of the resident who expect exceptional interior lighting designs.

Photometric study of lighting levels

In order to properly assess both the efficiency and the quality of home lighting, and to custom design a superior system in the process, we conduct a scientific, photometric lighting analysis of your home at the point by point level. We use a custom home lighting software program that allows us to go through your every room in your home and develop hypothetical lighting design models that consist of varying combinations and levels of light. This software also allows us to render a 3D, animated movie of any hypothetical system that allows you to see what a walkthrough of your home would look like if that system were installed. This gives you the power to foresee results prior to authorizing an installation, choose between different options, and make any changes you desire prior to signing anything.

Creating of layered lighting effects

Our team is renowned for combining custom home lighting design with home lighting control in such a way as to lay down multiple layers of light that combine to create unique atmospheres and moods in various portions of the home. These layered lighting effects have a powerful effect on human emotions and can be used to set the tone for family gatherings, home theater, musical appreciation, fine art collecting, displays of collectibles, and parties. They can also be used on a practical level to set the pace for daily activities that sometimes require a bit of an emotional push to get us to do. Lights can be adjusted to create and “activity based” atmosphere conducive to doing things such as studying, home projects, repairs, and cleaning.

With the right combination of automation and manual controls, you can have instant, one-touch access to a myriad of colors, brightness levels, and special lighting effects throughout the house.

Installation of fixtures with better glare shielding, reflectors, and lamping technology

We take a “less is more” approach to physical equipment whenever possible. Too many visible ceiling light fixtures tend to clutter the ambience of a room, so we custom design home lighting systems around the principles of concealment and the mathematical calculation of optimal lighting angles. We use only equipment that is engineered with the best optics, glare shielding, and lamping technology available from today’s top manufacturers. The lights we install are American-made, factory-grade, and backed up with written warranties from our nation’s leading manufacturers. We aim to give you the best in both design and technology so that reduced power costs and minimized replacements help recover your investment over the years to come.

It starts with a simple phone call

Regardless of whether we are helping you play or work, our custom home lighting services are intended to meet your needs on every level and to provide a key ingredient to a quality, peaceful, and fulfilling lifestyle.