Your Room-By-Room Guide to Luxury Lighting

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Home luxury lighting is no light matter! In 2021 alone, homeowners used more than 510 trillion hours of electricity to illuminate their homes. 

Interior luxury lighting continues to be more accessible, energy-efficient, and design-focused. However, consider creating a plan before buying beautiful lights and putting them up wherever you want. Creating a beautiful luxury lighting design flows best if you take it room by room. 

Take a minute to answer these basic questions, and you will be well on your way to creating a well-lit and luxurious home in less time than you think.

Here is your quick guide:

• What room are you focusing on?
• How does this fixture need to function for tasks?
• Does the style compliment my overall aesthetic?
• Is the fixture the right size for my room?
• What is your budget?
• What size light bulb does it require? Is that sufficient?
• What type of maintenance does it require?

Kitchens

As the heart of the home, this room gets a lot of action! Consider using a combination of natural light and task lighting in your kitchen. Many people plan the layout of their kitchens to have a sink near their windows to take advantage of natural light. While natural light is amazing, it can be challenging to control in specific settings. If you do not have natural light, you will still want to be able to enjoy your space. This is where a plan can be helpful. You will want to think through how and where you will spend most of your time. Is it prepping, cleaning, cooking, or entertaining? When you make these designations, you can also decide what type and where you need luxury lighting. 

If you have a very large kitchen, you can install cove lights that will bounce light off the walls and ceiling. Be sure that the reflections do not create glare. You could install a ceiling-mounted fixture directly over the sink for doing the dishes, you might prioritize undercabinet lights to illuminate your work areas, and pendant lights might work well over an island for prepping. 

PRO TIP: Your pendants should be 2.5 to 3 times the height of your room in feet converted into inches. If your room is 10 feet tall, your pendants should be between 25 and 30 inches long.

Dining Rooms

When choosing luxury lighting for your dining room, you want your decisions to center around entertaining and eating at the dining table. There are many luxury lighting options depending on how you use it most and what you want for the overall ambiance. You could place one large fixture, like a chandelier, directly over the table and add a dimmer to create a comfortable and flexible atmosphere. 

If you have dark walls, brighter lights can compensate for how much light the paint or wallpaper absorbs. You might place wall sconces on the walls to make your shelves or decorations stand out. Space these sconces apart, so they don’t overlap and make your room too bright. If the lights are too bright, it can make your food look washed out and unappealing.

PRO TIP: A chandelier or other low-hanging fixtures should be centered over the dining table, not in the middle of the room.

Living Rooms

Living rooms are often multi-purpose spaces. A combination of task, ambient, and accent lights are usually the best way to light your living room. 

You can use wall lights, table and floor lamps, and recessed lighting for task lighting.  If you use a table for hobbies, you might place a small chandelier or pendant fixture over it. Recessed lights free up space on your ceiling, while track lights can add a more modern or industrial aesthetic to the room.

For ambient lighting, you can use any type of fixture that will wash the walls with light and make your room seem brighter. Think drama. How do you want your room to feel?

Accent lights are more specific, like task lights. They highlight architectural elements, artwork, or even a fireplace. 

PRO TIP: Find professionals like Porter Lighting who hand-select lighting fixtures for your room and your specific works of art. Accent fixtures from a big box store can damage a painting or sculpture from the light’s heat, brightness, and radiation. 

Bathrooms

When renovating a bathroom, decisions around lighting are often the first step. A low-wattage ambient light might be all you need for a small powder room. For a spacious master bath retreat, multiple lighting types might be needed to create your oasis. Many people often use ceiling fixtures to illuminate their bathrooms. These fixtures may work fine, but they can create shadows that make it hard for you to see yourself in the mirror. 

No matter what fixtures you use, it’s important to create an even balance of light, so your reflection is perfectly visible. If you have room on your wall, an excellent way to do this can be to install a fixture on each side of your mirror. If your mirror takes up most of the wall, you can use overhead lights with bulbs directed toward the edges of your mirror. A vintage chandelier or schoolhouse light can really make a statement in your luxury lighting design.

Bedrooms

In the past, traditional bedrooms often relied on table lamps to illuminate the space. Table lamps can work well as task lights, but if you use your bedroom for other tasks like dressing and relaxing, you may want to provide more options. 

Luxury lighting is all about layers. Ceiling lights come in a wide range of sizes and styles. Bedroom ceiling lights may be flush-mounted or hanging, depending on the size of your room and the height of your ceiling, or you may prefer recessed lighting for a more streamlined look. 

Consider adding wall-mounted fixtures around your bed and near your dresser. You can add adjustable arms to your wall-mounted fixtures. When you want to add more light to your reading material, you can move the arm and direct the bulb to cast light on it. Creating the right ambiance is key.

Home Offices

Luxury lighting in your home, even the office, depends on how you use your office and where exactly you work. If you use a computer, you want to arrange your light fixtures so they don’t reflect on your screen. Position your lights behind your computer and use a wall-mounted fixture to prevent glare. 

You can use indirect lighting to illuminate the whole space if you work in multiple areas of your office. Sconces or cove lights can project the light against the walls and ceiling. Remember that paint makes a difference too. Paint your walls bright colors, and the light bounces off better. Dark colors will absorb the light. 

The Most Important Luxury Lighting Ideas

Again, luxury lighting is all about layers. How do you want each room to feel? Typically, the best way to create your luxury lighting design is to go room by room. Your kitchen should have plenty of task lights, while your dining room will probably have a prominent central fixture at the least. Your other spaces should have a balance of lights, including ambient fixtures. 

Arrange your lights so they don’t overlap, produce glare, or take up too much ceiling space. Use a range of fixtures, including sconces and track lights. Visit a showroom so you can see what these fixtures look like. If you need help picking your luxury lights, talk to us! We serve the Dallas area. Contact us today and schedule a showroom appointment to talk to one of our lighting experts to help illuminate your home.