Plan For Lighting When Renovating Your Home

So you have the funds to renovate your home and you’ve started to make a list of what you need and how much it costs to achieve your dream home. That’s all great but when planning your refurbishment, don’t overlook the lighting which will be required.

The process of building or renovating a home requires numerous elements that should harmoniously work together. If you don’t take into account the location and type of lighting you will need, this could spell the difference between a bright and inviting home compared to a dark and unwelcoming one.

There are three general types of lighting required in the home – ambient, accent and task lighting - each needed to be correctly used to create an impressive effect as well as creating functionality of living spaces.

The Light Company’s expert, Judy Davison, explains why you should always include lighting in your original home improvement budget for maximum impact.

Improves the Mood

General lighting, also known as ambient lighting, is the most common form of lighting in the home. This includes wall lamps, chandeliers, and other lights that illuminate the house’s rooms.

General lighting is important to a home because it improves the mood, creating a warm and bright ambiance as opposed to gloomy and unattractive spaces. Insufficient lighting will make family members and friends avoid the areas, while also making a room feel cramped.

A healthy amount of sunlight, to provide natural lighting to the interiors of a home, will play a part in creating relaxed and cheerful spaces. However, sunlight will not be able to reach all the corners of a house, and it is not always available. The proper placement of general lighting is required to fill in the gaps.

The Task in Hand

Task lighting is the kind of lighting required in specific areas of a room to allow you to complete specific tasks. Compared to the wide reach of general lighting, task lighting is designed to point towards a specific direction. Task lights should also be around two to three times brighter, in the form of desk lamps, ceiling lights, and others that are close to a certain location where the task is focussed.

When reading a book, working in the kitchen, taking a shower, or the many other things that people usually do at home, task lighting makes getting the job done far easier. For example, while the general lighting in the kitchen stays on, a lamp closer to the kitchen counter will help provide the additional illumination to eliminate any risk during food preparation.

Accent on the Best

Accent lighting highlights specific elements of a home’s interiors, such as the colour of the walls, a favourite painting, or the edges of certain furniture or appliance.

Compared to general lighting and task lighting, accent lighting is purely aesthetic, such as halogen lights that are focused on a championship trophy or the string lights that line up at the edge of a tabletop.

In addition to the light that they provide, accent lighting fixtures may be a part of the interior design itself. Stylish floor lamps and quirky ceiling lights go far in providing a room with personality.

Budgeting for your Lights

When it comes to budgeting for your lights, Judy has also come up with the following guidelines:

• Spotlights can range from £3 to £50 but should not be widespread only used to highlight areas not to floodlight a room.
• For a double height ceiling chandelier expect to pay £1000 plus for something large scale as when you are looking for bigger items they can take extra hands to make and the carriage costs increase so that has an impact on the price of these larger items. (You should also check if they come whole and s can fit through the door to your home and chosen room).
• A lounge light can average between £250 to £400 but if you opt for crystal the price may be higher.
• For kitchen pendants allocate around £100 per fitting if you want an oversized pendant allow £250.
• Bathroom fittings would be roughly £100 for a good ceiling light.
• For wall lights expect to pay £50 and upwards
• Don't forget the light bulbs too as the Led bulbs can cost £5 to £15 each.

So, based on the above estimated budgets, a four-bedroom house, with a large entrance hall will cost you around £4,000 if you are aiming to light it properly and for maximum impact.

The Light Company

With the importance of lighting as part of your home improvement strategy now established, you need to think about how to bring good lighting to your home.

It is best to look for lighting stores that offer you different kinds of lighting fixtures, including desk lamps, floor lamps, wall lamps, chandeliers, ceiling lights, and outdoor lighting.

At the Light Company, we have an online shop which offers everything you could want when it comes to lighting up your home with selections from leading brands including Laura Ashely, dar lighting and David Hunt. See our full range her https://thelightcompany.co.uk/

We also have a showroom in Craddock Street in Swansea if you prefer to see our lighting options at first hand.