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Using Lighting to Effect.

By: Owen Jones

Read More About Interior Design

When you are considering the interior design of a house or area, illumination is almost certainly the most significant aspect of the alterations to the interior decoration. After all, it is the element that generates the atmosphere of the room. You can create moods from intimacy to stark clinicism just by the power of your light bulb or turning a dimmer switch.

Still, if you would like to be in no doubt that the result of the illumination is the one you are looking for, it is essential that you know the four principal forms of lighting.

Ambient lighting:
This is the general illumination for the whole room. In most rooms it is the usual light in the centre of the ceiling be it a fluorescent tube or an incandescent bulb. It is recommended that you make use of one or more dimmers in order to have more flexibility in creating special effects for every occasion.

Local lights:
These lights are used to supplement or even briefly take the place of the ambient lighting. Local lights are most frequently standard lamps, table and wall lights and are usually used in order to assist such activities as reading, cooking, and shaving. The intensity of the light is local and it has to be correctly worked out so it won’t put a strain on the eyes.

Accent lights
Accent lights are sources of light for displaying ornamental items, generally placed so as to highlight an objet d’art . Quite literally to show it in its best light.

Natural light:
This is the one we get free though skylights, windows and doors. This light is controllable for part of the day by shades, curtains, drapes, blinds or awnings, but obviously varies with the time of the day, the season and the weather. Some locations see huge variations in natural light according to the season, eg monsoon, snow, etc.

It is probably easiest, if you undertake a house room by room. Start by thinking about what the room is used for. Retirees will probably want to take advantage of the daytime natural light for hobbies and reading, but a working couple with school-age kids, will be more active in the evening, when additional lighting might be more essential.

Write down what you do and where you do it. Do you have a favourite armchair for reading the paper, do you read the paper during daylight hours or after work? Be courageous in your selection of illumination, but also keep in mind that lighting can have a strong influence on our perception of dimensions, making a room look larger or smaller than it is in reality.

There are numerous methods to light a room but they all come from one of two perspectives: the lighting is either functional or artistic. Yes, they are both used to enable you to see more easily, but highlighting the pages of a book or a shaving mirror is not quite the same as using a low light to highlight a statue of the Madonna in an alcove.

In a brief summation, you could use the few lines below to give you initial thoughts when you are thinking about changing a room’s lighting:

i] Position a standard lamp behind armchairs: they should be between three and five feet tall.
ii] Use an accent light to high or even low light a painting.
iii] Use an accent light to underline the contours of bookshelves.
iv] The ambient light should be adjustable.
v] Use local lighting to cover the walls with a low light or glow (can be recessed into the floor)

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

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