How to Use Lighting Design to Transform your Home!

1. Welcome and Introduction: Hi, I'm Erica for Eagleman and I am so excited that you've chosen to join me in my course, lighting design to transform your home. This is a specialized course that I had been wanting to put together for a while now, and I am thrilled. That's finally here. While I do love the entire world of interior design, if I were to ever specialize in one area, lighting design would definitely be it. Why? Because lighting truly can transform the look and feel of your home. And I want to show you exactly how to do that specifically by participate in the activities throughout this course, you will walk away with your very own customized lighting plan for a specific room of your home. I'm going to give you a template on which you can do this. And I will be walking you through how to complete this template step by step. As a result, you should find this course to be extremely practical, which is always my goal this course, we'll also answer such burning questions that you may have, including how much light is my room really need? How do I choose the right size light fixtures? My room? And how do I hide those unsightly chords from my light fixtures? Not to worry because you will receive answers to all of these questions and many, many more throughout this class. That said, lighting is a very technical area of design. And in fact, there are both professionals and companies who just specialize in creating complex residential lighting design plants. My goal with this course is not to teach you everything in the world of lighting design, as that would be a very, very long class. But rather to give you enough knowledge that you feel comfortable create a holistic lighting scheme for your home all on your own. Now, before we jump into the course content, I always like to share just a little information about myself, especially for those of you who are new to my courses. I own my own interior design business called Erica dot interiors. I truly love what I do professionally. Not only do I have the privilege of creating beautiful and functional spaces for my clients. But I am so happy to have found a new passion through online teaching, which allows me to share my knowledge in a very practical way with others who also have an interest in this topic. Based on feedback from you, my students, I know that some of you take my courses as a way to help you do DIY interior design. Others are aspiring interior designers for interior design students. And finally, some of you are new professionals in this field. What ever your background. This is definitely one course that will benefit all of you. And I want to thank you so much for joining me. That said, I'm sure you're anxious to dive right in. So let's go ahead and move on to the next lecture where I will be sharing with you specifically what you'll be learning in this course. 2. Overview of Course Content: As I mentioned in the last lecture, I believe one of the biggest benefits you will receive in this course is that you will walk away with a completed and customized lighting scheme for any room of your home by using a template that I have created specifically for this course. But there is so much more that you're going to learn about residential lighting. We will start by talking about why lighting is so important to the overall design of your room. Because once you understand the role that lighting plays, I am confident that this will not be an area that you overlook in your future interior design projects. Then we're going to get technical maybe more technical than you'd like if you're not designed professional, but I promise you that's not too long. And the information will really help you to understand the foundational principles behind lighting design. Specifically, you will learn what light actually is the importance of both natural and artificial light in the room, and they're different functions and you will learn all about light bulbs. Yes, light bulbs. There's actually a surprising amount of information in the world of light bulbs, but I will distill it down into just what you will likely need to know. You will then learn how to calculate the right amount of light or lumens that you will need for each of your rooms, as well as how to adjust your lighting needs for rooms with particularly tall ceilings and dark paint. After I walk you through some initial work on your customized lighting guide, we will then get into arguably the most practical information in the course. Specifically, you will learn about the three layers of light that are essential to all. Great lighting schemes will dive a bit into cove lighting. You will learn how to choose the right type of light fixtures based on the function of your rooms. All answer commonly asked questions. When it comes to backlit mirrors in the bathroom, you'll learn how to choose the right size light fixtures, the correct placement for those fixtures. And then I'll teach you how to create a simplified professional lighting plan that interior designers regularly use, which will really complement the work that you also be doing on your customized guy. I'll then teach you how to choose the right lamp shade, how to hide those unsightly cords from your light fixtures. How to effectively control your natural and artificial late and where you can purchase great lighting for all rooms of your home. After you do some more work on your lighting guy, you will then learn how lighting can truly act like a magician in the room by altering the intensity of colors in your room, making your room appear larger or smaller than it actually is, and easily creating a focal point for your room, which is one of the key elements to great interior design. In one of the last activities of the course, I will then walk you through two case studies in which you'll have an opportunity to improve the lighting scheme in two different rooms, using all of your newfound knowledge. And finally, I will walk you through putting the final touches on your customized lighting guy. Wow, that is a lot to get through, but I will do my best to keep it lively and entertaining. Please note that I have placed a course outline in the resource is section that you are welcome to print out and use for jotting down your notes as you listen to the lectures. Are you ready to get started? Excellent. See you in the next lecture 3. 3 Great Lighting Tricks!: throughout this class, I'm going to be giving you a lot of helpful tips and tricks that will really raise the bar on the lighting scheme in your home. So when I was putting together this particular lecture, I had challenged deciding which three designer tricks I wanted to share with you. First, I decided to go ahead and focus on three common techniques that interior designers use that didn't naturally fall into another section of this course. So while these three are great, just know that many more helpful tips will be coming throughout the entire course. That said, here is my first trick for you whenever possible, especially in your bathroom or your bedroom, where you typically want to look your best, you sconces instead of relying solely on your overhead lights. Overhead lights, while great at providing overall ambient light to a room, also tend to cause unflattering shadows on our faces, which is usually not what you want at any time of day, but particularly when you're trying to get ready in the morning. Overhead lights also tend to amplify wrinkles, which is not fun for anyone over the age of 30 sconces. When placed correctly illuminate your face beautifully. Why? Because they're generally placed at eye level, which means that the light is traveling across the room at you instead of down on top of you. Sconces are also never glaring because the light source is typically shielded by fabric, glass or metal. Diffusing the light beautifully, as I just mentioned, I particularly love them in the bathroom, and I regularly specify them for my clients, and I always use them in my own bathrooms. Now, apart from the bathroom, they are also great to place on either side of your bed in your hallways, up the stairwell, flanking the left and right side of your fireplace, and they look so elegant in a dining room. And this is just to name a few places. Sconces look great almost anywhere, including your kitchen, which people often don't think about. One reason people may shy away from sconces is because they think it is going to be expensive to install them. But the labor isn't as much as you may think, and the cost for a pair of sconces is often less expensive than for a chandelier and is often in line with the cost of a table. And now, for those of you who just can't or don't want to deal with the labor involved for installing hardwired sconces, they do make plug in sconces as well, although not my favorite. Because I'm not a fan of visible cords, however, they still can be a great option for many. And many people aren't bothered by the cords like I am. So do yourself a favor and invest in some sconces. I am confident that you will love the result. My second trick for you is a really easy one, and it has to do with one of my very favorite accessories to decorate. If you've taken any of my other courses, you know that I am always always encouraging you to use plants in your interior. Design plants are just amazing. They give us oxygen. They liven up a room with their color and their texture, and they are great at filling empty corners. So that said, my trick is this. For any large plants that you have placed against the wall, invest in some up lights and place them on the ground behind your plants. They will make the plant in your room appear so dramatic in the evening. And these up lights are so affordable, at least in the US you can also find lights that come on stakes that you place in the soil of your plant to shine upward through the leaves. And these work great as well. As long as your plant has some hype to it, try this out and then invite some friends over. And I am certain that you will get some appreciative comments. I know that I do. Okay, Last but not least, my next trick is a great one when you were trying to maximize natural light in a room that is on the dark side for whatever reason, and the trick is this. Place a mirror opposite your window and then watch the light bounce around your room and go for a big mirror. The bigger the better. Miers naturally reflect light on their own, but when placed opposite a window, they just shine. This is such a easy but often overlooked technique by most people accept designers. We know how cost effective and easy this is to do so. Give it a try and there you go. Three of my favorite lighting tricks that you can use in your own home to improve the way your home looks, Add some drama and to maximize light, enjoy. 4. Why IS Lighting so Important? : lighting truly has the power to make or break your interior design scheme. Now you may be wondering, How can that possibly be? The reality is that without great lighting, all of your beautiful design choices from your flooring and your furniture to your wallpaper and your pink colors will simply not have the same impact without the proper illumination. And you probably know this from experience. A poorly lit room will be used a lot less in your home than a well lit room. Great lighting also has the ability to not only make you and your room look good, but did you know that great lighting can also make you feel good, too? Yes, it's true. And here's how adequate lighting could be critical to your mood and possibly your mental well being, particularly for individuals who live in areas of the world that received little sunlight during certain times of the year. On the flip side, research published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology in 2014 show that theme or intense the lighting, the greater the person's emotions both positive and negative. For example, they have the participants rate various things under different lighting conditions, including how spicy a certain sauce waas, how attractive somebody waas and they're positive and negative feelings towards certain words. The results were that when the participants were under the brightest light, they wanted the spicier sauce. They thought the person was more attractive and they felt that the positive words were more positive and the negative words were even more negative. The bottom line is that people's emotions were stronger under bright light, which may not always be a good thing. This, to me is a really interesting study and further supports my strong recommendation to always include dimmers on all of your ambient light sources so that you can help control the emotions in a room more on dimmers later in the course. Finally, lighting also plays a huge part in setting the right tone and mood for your room, not just with the actual light that the fixtures are admitting, but also with the fixtures themselves. There is a huge amazing assortment of light fixtures available today. Many are beautiful, some are simply stunning and stunning. Light fixtures will act like works of art for your room, elevating the overall mood and design of your space on that note. Be sure to use different but coordinating types of light fixtures to avoid a man, not this look in your room. So given all of these reasons, why not invest a little time into making sure that you have the best possible lighting scheme? The point I really want to underscore for you is that with the myriad of choices available today in the area of lighting, bad lighting never has to happen. What is bad lighting lying as to brighter, glaring lighting that creates unflattering shadows and lighting that is just plain inadequate? In short, bad lying will just make a room feel unwelcoming and possibly even outdated. So then what is great lighting? Great lighting is first and foremost, functional and flexible, but it's also comfortable. It seamlessly blends with the architecture and design of your room. It's not glaring. It minimizes shadows and enhances the mood of a room and makes its occupants look fantastic . It's a tall order, I know, but once you understand some guidelines and formulas, you too can pull this off in your own home and great line scheme does not have to break the bank. In fact, Great Lane is often with the easiest and most affordable ways that you can use to completely transform the look and feel of your home. My hope is that by the end of this course, you will never look at lighting the same way again. 5. What is Light Anyway?: So what is light anyway? For your science enthusiasts out there, you may likely already know that light is a form of electromagnetic energy, and visible light is part of that energy. Just like with radio and TV, light is transmitted in waves, and each color has its own wavelength. White light is the visible result when all of the colors are combined into one. And as I'm sure you may have witnessed, when white light like from the sun shines through a prism, we see all of the visible colors in the rainbow. Now let's talk about light. In the context of design, the human eye responds differently to different colors. More specifically are I responds, best toe light as reflecting the green yellow area of the spectrum and less to the blue violet or red end of the spectrum. So what does this mean in practical terms? Well, most people respond better to brighter rooms than darker rooms, and we know that green yellow is brighter than blue, violet or red. This explanation of the human eye and light helps us understand why more people are typically drawn to brighter rooms. Now let's take this a step further on the technical realm. When light shines on the object, some colors are reflected back and others are absorbed. The color than item appears to us is based on what wavelength of light is being reflected back to us. For example, if an item appears to be green and color like a plant in the plant is reflecting back the green wave ling, and it's absorbing all of the other color wave links. White objects reflect back all wave links, and black objects absorb all wavelengths. Now let's talk about natural and artificial light in the room and how that makes our furnishings appear. As I mentioned earlier. White light includes all of the color wave links, so it is a purest light, and what gives you the most accurate color rendering? This is why you will often hear designers or other professionals recommend that you look at an item like would, for example, in natural light to get the best read on its actual color. Artificial light is not necessarily so. We have to know the light fixtures true color rendering capability because they do differ once we know how they render color that will tell us how they will cast light in the room. Specifically, light fixtures are typically given a color rendering index number from 0 to 100. The higher the number the bedridden as higher numbers have a truer color rendition at its color temperature. You will find that incandescent light bulbs, day light and candlelight all give fairly good color rendering, while fluorescent lights, including Cfl's do not. Fortunately, CFL's are getting better at provide a more natural looking light. 6. The Importance of Natural and Artificial Light: Now that you haven't understanding for the difference between natural and artificial light , let's talk about why having both types of light are so critical to the overall design of your room. First, let's talk about the importance of natural light. As I mentioned in the previous lecture, Natural light provides the best coloring rendering for your furnishings. Then there's the obvious benefit. The more natural light. You have any room during the day, the less electricity that you'll need to use lighting up your space. But there are tremendous physical and psychological benefits to natural light as well. Natural light improves your circadian rhythms, and for those of you who remember this term from your biology class, you know that circadian rhythms control your sleep cycles, your body temperature hormone release and other key bodily functions. Natural daylight also results in improved moods and ah, higher level of motivation and productivity. Given all of these benefits, it's no surprise then that natural light also helps to reduce stress and in general creates a mawr calm environment. And who doesn't want that? Now? Let's chat for a few minutes about artificial light. Artificial light also serves many important purposes in our home. Can you guess the most obvious one right? Artificial light allows us to continue activities in our home after the sun has gone down. Artificial light can also improve the safety of your home in places like your kitchen to ensure that you don't cut yourself when chopping up vegetables and in your bathroom by helping to provide visual cues as to where the critical edges are, particularly for individuals who are older or may have impaired eyesight. But my favorite benefit of artificial light is its flexibility and amazing ability to create dramatic effects in a room, particularly with the use of accent lighting. Daylight definitely cannot do that. So there you have it. Don't underestimate the power of both natural and artificial light in your home. Do your best to maximize your natural light and then use a layered lighting scheme to amplify your artificial light. We'll talk about how to do both of these later in the course 7. Learn Your Light Bulbs!: welcome to the world of light bulbs, light bulbs, arm or important to the overall design of your room. Then you may think why, because light bulbs emit different color temperatures, which have a significant effect on the overall mood of your room. So let's go ahead and dive into the specifics. You essentially have three different types of lightbulbs that you can use in a residential lighting design. Incandescent Cfl's and led. He's I'm sure you know about incandescents. They dominated the residential light unseen for decades. Well, we all love about incandescents are the beautiful warm light that they admit, which in turns makes us look good. But incandescents are definitely on their way out. Unfortunately, they're super inefficient. They are not eco friendly, and they have been known to burn fingers. Ouch. Then there are Cfl's. Cfl's are certainly better than incandescents. And while they are cheaper than L, Edie's led, they're still my first choice and most designers first choice for a variety of reasons. Led is used to have a bad reputation is making a room look too cold. But that really is a thing of the past. Today's Ah ladies have improved so much and now they more closely mimic the look of incandescent light bulbs, which means a much warmer, skin. Flattering light. Additionally, led is tend to last about 10 years, or six times longer than CFL six times. That's pretty significant, led Zehr, also low maintenance. They consume less energy, meaning that they are great on your electric bill, and they also have the advantage of being cool to the touch and led is also don't contain any mercury like fluorescence, and Cfl's do one more bonus. So even though they cost more, it's completely worth it, in my opinion, for the home I choose led is there between 2700 k and 3000 cake. The case stands for Kelvin rating, which simply tells us what the color temperature is meaning, how warm or how cool the light is. I personally like the 2700 Kate of 3000 K range because it results in a warmer light similar to candlelight, which is more flattering and easier on the eyes. You will find that bulbs are in the 2500 a 65 100 K range, with 2500 being the warmest and 6500 being the coolest 35. Hundreds of fairly neutral color temperature. If you're trying to cool down the color scheme in your room, look for a bulb around 4000 K at 5000 K This is even cooler, and you are now close to mimicking natural sunlight, which I'm sure a surprising to some of you, as many people probably think that natural daylight is warmer than that. All that said, there isn't a right and wrong here. It's partly personal preference, but you should also consider the style of your interior design. You may find that for traditional transitional or similar styles, a warmer light is better. Conversely, for contemporary Scandinavian or similar styles, you will often find that I cooler for a whiter light is preferred. Also, consider the function of your room When deciding on a bulbs color temperature. I tend to use warmer bulbs for living rooms, family rooms and bedrooms, cooler light for kitchens and bathrooms, and daylight color for home offices. If you end up buying a bowl that you don't like from a temperature standpoint, you can of course, likely return it. But you may also consider swapping up the shade for a different one, as some shades will definitely change the appearance of a bulbs lighting. One interesting note about L. E. D's. You may be aware that when you DeMann incandescent bulb, the light will get warmer. Not so with melodies. The warmth of the bulb is the same. Regardless, if it's on full strength or when dimmed, that could be a positive or a negative for you. But any rate, it's definitely something to be aware of. And there you have it. You have just completed lightbulbs 101 great job. 8. Determine How Much Light you Need for Your Room: as I spoke about earlier in the course. Insufficient lighting is a major problem in many homes around the world. There is a rule of thumb for how much light or wattage that you need for a room, and I definitely recommend that you use these guidelines in your own home. All you need to do is multiply your square Kate by 1.5 for your Andean light needs and multiply your square feet of your task area by 2.5 to determine your task Lighting's. So, for example, for a 12 by 14 room, which would be 100 68 square feet, you would need 252 watts for your ambient lighting. If you want the light at the kitchen island that was six by eight or 48 square feet, you would need 100 20 watts of task lighting for that island. But remember that when using led bulbs, an led bulb with 10 watts is equivalent to a 60 watt incandescent. Now you could go ahead and do the math to determine how Maney Watt equivalence of led you will need or another approach you can use is to simply determine how many lumens you need as led bulbs will tell you how many lumens each light bulb gives off. Lumens just refers to how much light a bull or any object, for that matter admits, and that term has been around for a very long time. It just hasn't been used in a light bulb industry until about 2011. Lumens is actually much better measure for light bulbs, as Watts simply tells you how much energy a ball uses. Pretty interesting, right? At any rate, you should know that the higher the lumens, the brighter the bulb will be. So how do you determine how many lumens you need per room? Well, this one is a little trickier. First, the good news. There are some decent guidelines that we designers used to figure this out. The not so good news is that you'll need to consult a chart toe, help us with your math. It's important to know that there is a chart for the imperial system, meaning when you are measuring in square feet. And then there's a chart for the metric system, meaning when you are measuring in square meters, let's go ahead and tackle the imperial system. First, lumens needed is determined by how many foot candles are needed based on the function of the room. A foot candle is just the term used to describe how maney lumens are needed for the room. Specifically, a foot candle is one lumens per square foot, and there are guidelines for how many foot candles are needed for each type of room. So let's look at this chart together. In general, you can see that living rooms need 10 to 20 foot candles of ambient light. So how do you use this information? You simply multiply your square feet by 10 and then 20 to get your range. So in a 12 by 15 living room to figure out the square footage, just multiply the width of the room, which is 12 by the length of the room, which is 15 and you find that you have 100 80 square feet. Now you multiply 1 80 by the recommended foot. Candles specifically multiply 1 81st by 10 which is 1800 then by 20 which would be 3600. This tells you that you will need between 1836 100 lumens of ambient light for your living room. Continuing on with the chart, you can see that for a living room Task light. You will need between 30 and 40 foot candles per square feet of each task area. For general Kitchen Ambien Light, you need between 30 and 40 foot candles and so on and so forth. Looking down the chart, you can see that you have guidelines as well for kitchen task areas, dining rooms, bedroom, ambient and task lighting, bathroom, ambient and task lighting, home office, ambient and task lighting, hallways and laundry rooms. Now let's talk about the metric system with the metric system they measure in something called Lux rather than foot candles. So first you need to do the same thing that we did in the imperial system, which is to go ahead and measure your room and then calculate how many square meters the room is by multiplying the length of the room by the width of the room. Then you multiply your square meters by the recommended Lux. Let's go ahead and look at the recommended Lux levels by room for a living room, and the in light aimed toe have won 10 to 2 20 lakhs per square meter. Let's say your living room is three meters by four meters. This would be 12 square meters. Now you multiply 12 by the recommended Lux. See your range will be 13 20 to 26 40 lumens. Moving on down the chart. You will see that you need the following For a living room task lighting. Look toe have 300 to 400 lux per square meters of each task area. For general kitchen Ambien light, you need between 304 100 lux and again you will see all of the same areas covered that we have in the metric system chart, making this a great reference tool for those of you who use the metric system. That said, these are all just guidelines a starting point, really, as the overall brightness of the room and height of the ceilings plays into it. For example, if you have really dark walls and very high ceilings, then you will need more lumens to properly illuminate your room or if you have vision problems. You may also need more light than this, or conversely, you may be someone who just enjoys aim or dimly lit room, for example, if you're a vampire. If that's the case, then I suggest using dimmers so that you have the flexibility to up the lumens for other friends, family members or the non vampires in your life who enjoy more light over. Although this will give you a great starting point toe, help you ensure that you're never left in the dark again when it comes the lighting design . 9. Special Considerations for Tall Ceilings and Dark Rooms: 10. Activity #1 - Let's Start Your Lighting Guide!: Now it's time to start using this information in a personal way by beginning to create your very own customized lighted plan for one of the rooms in your home. First, go ahead and print out the guide to creating your customized lighting plan and then grab a pen or pencil. Go ahead and press pause now and then come back when you have those items. Okay, now that you're ready for your first activity, I want you to focus on answering the 1st 6 questions in your guide. The first question is simply asking you Which room of your home do you want to create a customized lighting plan? For once you have made that decision, then questions two through six will help you to determine how many lumens of ambient and task lighting you will need for that particular room. As you learned about in the last lecture. Be sure to note that I have included helpful Resource is in this lecture to help you conduct these very important calculations. I sincerely hope you choose to participate in this activity, as it will not only be great practice for you, but will also help you to really elevate the overall design of your home. That said, I look forward to seeing you in the next section 11. Use 3 Layers of Light: by far. One of the most common mistakes people make when laying their rooms is that they don't think in layers they commonly will. Just here's one light source, often one that is in the middle of the room attached to the ceiling. This may be a flush mount or a semi flush mount light a chandelier, maybe recessed, can lights or even just a ceiling fan, which usually does not provide enough light for a room and nearly always creates unwanted shadows. We designers think completely differently. We think in layers three layers, to be exact as much as possible. You want to shoot for having three different layers of lighting in your rooms. These layers are ambient lighting, task lighting and accent lighting. And as you learn, each of these three sources resides throughout all levels of the room the ceiling, the walls or middle of the room and sometimes the floor. So that said, if you take the time to just include all three layers of light in your room, you will automatically raise your lighting game and be head and shoulders above most other people in their interior design. Now, let's go ahead and talk about each layer in more detail. First, we have ambient lighting, and this is where you should start. When you hear the word ambient lighting, just think general lighting. This is a light source that provides illumination to the entire room during the day. Try to use natural light as much as possible for your Ambien. Light Daylight is some of the best lighting around, and it's free. And remember, as I spoke about in an earlier lecture, used mirrors to help amplify natural daylight around your room now are in the artificial side of ambient lighting. As I mentioned earlier, this is typically the Onley type of light people have in their homes. Forms of ambient lighting include chandeliers, recessed can lights, flush mount or semi plush mount lights, wall sconces and even ceiling fan lights. Although I find that the latter is generally not bright enough to provide true ambient light on its own true Ambien, light means that lights up your room fairly evenly and gives you enough like to do things like clean your room effectively. Also, I want to make one note about recessed can lights. They definitely give off a more contemporary feel, so I personally wouldn't use them in more traditional homes. Now, on the other hand, sconces air probably suited particularly suited for traditional homes. So I always try to include them in the design when the room or the home leans more traditional and transitional as well. Task lighting is exactly what the name suggests. This type of light is used in smaller areas where mawr intense light is needed. When doing specific tasks like reading, working on a hobby or just working, you might be surprised to note that your task lighting should be at least double the brightness of your ambient lighting. That said, please be aware that you should not use bright task lights to take the place of your ambient light. Be sure to have ambient lighting as well in your room. Also place the task light next to or in front of the person so that their body doesn't cast a shadow on the test that they're performing, such as reading. And speaking of reading, where do you think the bottom of your lampshades and fall the low I level at eye level or above eye level? Great job. If you said that the bottom of the shade should fall at eye level, as this is the optimum positioning to prevent glare. Cast lighting includes table lamps, floor lamps, pendants, desk lamps, work lamps, well positioned track lighting and under cabinet lighting. Accent lighting is used to highlight objects or architectural features in a room. While your accent lighting fixtures can have bulbs that are brighter than the overall light in a room, make sure that they aren't more than about three times as bright as your ambient lighting. Holiday involves are a great choice for accent lights because of their intensity. Accent lighting includes up lighting such as floor can up lights for a plant, picture lights for your wall art or your bookshelves led strip lights in your book cases. Directional recess can lights or track lighting the highlight. Different objects on a table or a wall for a decorative mantle. All in all, I aim to have 3 to 5 different light sources in the room. Also, I always try to have some fixtures that shine up and some that shine down because having variety in the direction of your lighting will definitely make your lines scheme more dramatic. 12. Cove Lighting - A Good Choice for You?: 13. Choose Light Fixtures Based on the Function of Your Room: If you have taken my course how to design a room in 10 easy steps, you might remember that Step two is to decide on the key activities for your room. This is still a very much needed step. When it comes to lighting design, you need to know what activities are going to take place in your room before you decide on what type of lighting you're going to need. For example, in your family room, you might decide that this is where you're going to read, watch TV and entertain guests. Can you see how you may have different lighting needs for each of these different scenarios ? So the first step you need to do is determine and then write down the main functions for your room. Starting with is this a room that you will use just during the day, just a night or both? Then determine what main activities will be taking place there based on what type of room it is. We all know that different activities obviously take place in a kitchen versus a bedroom. You'll find that you'll need more of certain types of lighting in different rooms. For example, you will find that in general, you'll need more task lighting in a home office and will desire more accent lighting in your living room than in other parts of your home. Finally, determine where those functions will take place. For example, where will you be reading working on a hobby or shopping your vegetables? Now? That said, I'm going to take each type of room one by one and give you a general idea of what types of light fixtures you will need. First your entryway or four year enough lawyer. I would recommend you definitely include a general ambient light, such as a chandelier, large pendant, semi flusher, flush mount light or wall sconces throughout the space. I would also include a secondary light source, such as a table lamp or two or a picture light for any artwork that you may have. Now let's talk about your living room or family room, generally the place where you and your family hang out. Most of the time. You definitely want some ambient lighting here, and great options include recess can lights, a semi flush or flush mount light or a ceiling fan with a really good light fixture built in. But be sure those ambient light sources are on dimmers so that you can reduce the overall illumination in your room, particularly if you plan on watching TV in the evenings so you can reduce the glare on the TV screen. You'll likely also need some task lighting, so a great choice for this room would be table lamps. Or, if Laura Lamb, with a traditional shade, try to make sure that most of the seats in the room have task lighting with three way switches, if possible for reading or similar type activities. Torre She a floor lambs actually act is more of an ambient light source as they are throwing the light upwards to the ceiling. Then don't forget your accent lighting. You may want to include track lighting to highlight beautiful objects in the room on a console table. Led strip lights in your book cases. Four. Picture lights on your artwork. Now, if you have a formal living room, most of the same recommendations apply. But in this case, I would consider installing wall washing or wall grazing lights on your ceiling directed at your walls. Toe light up your walls. This is a much more elegant way to provide ambient lighting to a room. It has the added benefit of making your room feel larger and brighter and is a great way to highlight an interesting architectural feature on your wall. Let's spend the quick minute talking about the difference between wall washing and wall grazing as they are similar. The definitely different as well. Wall washing is a great way to light up a wall, eliminating shadows and smoothing out the texture off the wall visually. So that said, can you guess what is the main goal of wall grazing? The answer is the opposite of wall washing walled raisings. Use when you want to actually highlight the texture of your walls and create shadows such as with a beautiful stack stone wall or a really cool weathered brick wall. Both are wonderful and dramatic lane options, and now that you know the difference, I hope that you will consider giving one of them a try in your own home. For your dining room, A chandelier is an obvious choice, but again, either love the look of two chandeliers or two pendants over a dining table. If the table is large enough, then I would use either buffet lamps on a consul or buffet or a pair of wall sconces flanking artwork or a beer on one of the walls as well. In the dining room, I recommend making the chandelier or chandeliers the brightest light in the room so that it draws you in. But make sure you have a dimmer on that fixture to allow you to create the right ambience and certainly youth picture lights for any artwork that you have that aren't already lit up by sconces for the bedroom. For an Ambien light source, consider a chandelier semi flush or flush mount light, a ceiling fan, hanging pendants or small chandeliers on either side of your bed. Four Responses throughout your room. If you go with a room centered ambient light source, then you will also likely need some task lighting by your bed, which could be in the form of table lamps or wall mounted light fixtures. If choosing wall mounted light fixtures, I recommend using fixtures that have adjustable arms so that the light can be directed on the book that you're reading in bed for your kitchen. Andean Light is again a must by far the most common choice include recess can lights, but you have other options as well. Do you think chandeliers can be used in a kitchen? Definitely. The kitchen's love. My very favorite places, actually to include a chandelier, or even to if you have an island to place them over for task lighting, such as when your kids do homework while you cook. Consider installing pendants. But of course not in conjunction with chandeliers that would look really weird. Under cabinet lights are also a must if you conduce oh, it as they are, another great task lighting source for your kitchen. People often also use their under cabinet lights on Lee early in the mornings when they need some light to make their coffee or tea. But they don't want the bright light that we often have from our kitchen. Ambient light sources. I personally use it myself every single day, and I can tell you it's a much more pleasant way toe. Wake up for your bathroom for Ambien lighting. My favorite combination is to your sconces throughout the space, as well as combining that with some sort of overhead light toe. Fill in any shadows, having an overhead light in addition to your sconces will also make your bathroom cleaning much easier. I also love chandeliers in the bathroom, so that's always my go to light. Source first. But if the Scalia is too low, consider a semi flush or flush mount light. Can lights are ideal for over the shower or in a water closet? Now a word about sconces. As I have already mentioned, sconces are the most flattering light toe have in the bathroom. Just make sure that the bottom of the stances shade is right about eye level so that you won't see the bulb when looking into the mirror as this can cause I fatigue. So what do you think you should do if the people in your family dramatically vary in height from each other? How would you determine the right height at which toe hang your bathroom sconces? Do you think it's a take the average of everyone's height and hanging at that height? B. Go with the shortest person's eye level, or C ago, with the tallest person's eye level, or D forego sconces altogether? Well, sadly, the answer a professional will give you is typically D. I think this is the one situation where you may be better off with just using a light bart over the mirror in lieu of sconces so that you avoid a bad lighting set up for one or more of your family members. Just make sure that it's a long, light bar with multiple bulbs to provide the best possible illumination for your face. That said, for everyone else, definitely use sconces if possible. Now, another alternative to sconces is hanging pendants in a bathroom. This approach gives you the great lighting on each side of your face, but is a completely different look. I particularly love this. Look in more contemporary style homes for your home office. Consider wall sconces tor she a floor lamps, a chandelier or a ceiling fan with a bright light source for your ambient light needs. Definitely be sure to including desk lamp to properly illuminate your computer and your papers. Hanging pendants over a dust can also serve as task lighting. You may also want a table or floor lamp if you have guests eating in your home office. Finally, for your hallways, consider recessed. Can lights flush mount lights, large pendants or wall sconces? Definitely be sure to use picture lights for any artwork 14. Backlit Mirrors - All Your Burning Questions Answered: 15. Choose the Right Size Light Fixtures for Your Space: now that you've had a chance to consider what type of light fixtures you need based on the function of your room and the key activities for that room. Now let's talk about what size light fixtures you will need. Obviously want to avoid light pictures that are too big and will completely overwhelm the space. And conversely, please don't use ones that are too small, just like Goldie Locks. You want to find light fixtures that are just right. First, let's start with chandeliers, large pendants that you're using in lieu of a chandelier, semi flush mount lights and flush Mount lakes that are being used for ambient lighting in the middle of your room. In all of these cases, the sizing should be the same, and the way to determine the ideal size is to use a formula that we use in the imperial system. Add the length and the width of your room to determine the diameter of your light fixture. For example, let's say we're buying a chandelier for a four year. If your four year is 10 feet by 12 feet than the diameter of your fixture should be no smaller than 22 inches although I personally like to go up by as much as five inches, so I would look at fixtures there 22 to 27 inches in diameter. For the height of the fixture, you simply multiply the height of your ceiling first by 2.5 and then by three, and this will give you the ideal height of your fixture. Now, while I pretty much live and breathe by the formula for the width of the fixture, I'm personally a little more lax when it comes to the height. At the end of the day, I go with what looks best to my eye for the room, and you should too. But at least this gives you a great starting point now for you users of the metric system. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any comparable formulas to these in the metric system, so you'll need to do the conversions first before you use these excellent sizing methods. Now for a chandelier in your dining room, ideally, want a chandelier to be roughly 50 to 75% the width of your dying table. If you go with something that's larger than that, it will likely cast unflattering shadows on your dinner guest spaces, which they will definitely not want, I promise. So let's say that you have a dining table that is 40 inches wide, then a 22 inch fixture would work well, as that would be a little more than 50% the width of the table. Does that make sense? Great now for multiple pendants or chandeliers there, hanging over a kitchen islands, you will use the same formula that you use to determine the right size chandelier, meaning you measure the width and the length of your island. And each of your pendants or chandeliers should be at least a some of those measurements. So for a six foot by nine foot island, you want to find fixtures that are at least 15 inches and as large as 20 inches. If you like a new oversize look for sconces, there's no set rule of thumb on how big a Scott should be in a regular room. That said, you obviously want the sconces to be in proportion with your space. One tip I can give you is if you are hanging the sconces on either side of a mere or artwork that I would choose the sconce as roughly 1/3 the height of your mirror artwork and no larger than 50% the height of the mirror or the artwork for table lamps. There are a few guidelines that you can use first. You want to try to have the top of the lamp shade. Sit roughly 58 to 64 inches from the ground. So if your console table is 30 inches high, you would then look for a table lamp that is 28 to 34 inches high. A couple of reasons for doing this one. This means that the lamp she will sit right about eye level, which is perfect. Also, most floor lamps are 58 to 64 inches high, so if your table lamps hit about the same height, this creates a clean horizontal line of lamp shade. Height across your room, and this generally looks more pulled together, although there is also something to be said for lights at various heights throughout a room . The Onley word of caution I would give you is this. Ensure that matching fixtures such as matching table lamps or matching floor lamps hit at the same height. The other rule of thumb to be aware of is you don't ever want your table lamp to be any more than 1.5 times taller than the surface it's sitting on. It will just look unbalanced. Also, be sure that the lampshades diameter is smaller than the width of the table it is sitting on. You do not want your shade the hang over the outside edges of your table. That will look bad. Okay, I think we got through everything. I hope you found this information to be helpful. 16. Determine Your Light Fixture Placement: 17. Activity #2 - Let's Create 2 Professional Lighting Plans: now that you've learned how to select light fixtures based on the function of your room and how to choose the right size fixtures and the correct placement. Now let's put that information to use by creating lighting plans for two different homes. Now, I know that at times I've used the term lighting plan for the guide that you were working on in this course because it is indeed a plan. However, when we design professionals use the term lighting plan, we are referring to something very specific, which you can see on the screen these air to scale drawings that show the location of every light, fixture, switch and outlet in a home. And as a designer, I create these all of the time. They're really effective for a number of reasons, mainly because they help you to ensure that you have provided sufficient lighting to all areas of a room in a comprehensive top down view. So while the guide you are working on is a great step by step approach to help you create a cohesive lighting scheme for your home, I think helping you to create a simplified professional lighting plan will be extremely helpful to you as well. By simplified, I mean that we're only going to focus on the type and the location of light fixtures. We're not going to be including light switches or outlets. You can see in the legend on the left hand side that each type of fixture has its own symbol. Please note that these symbols often vary between software programs that different designers use. So if you end up having a professional, create a lay in plan for you, some of the symbols might look different from the ones that all be using in this exercise, which is why it's important to have a lighting symbol legend. There's one other important point I want to make before we begin these exercises. Obviously, plugging in a floor lamp or a table lamp along the wall is going to be pretty easy to do, given that electrical codes require that wall outlets are available at convenient locations on walls. However, if you want to install hardwired sconces where there are no boxes, floor lamps in the middle of the room that may require a well placed floor outlet or recess can lights into a condominium or flat that you own. There is obviously going to be additional cost to hire an electrician's to do this for you . And the cost could be considerable, depending on the type of situation and challenges that they run into during installation. So you may need to be flexible, and ultimately you may have to make changes to any lighting plan that you put together yourself. Let's go ahead and start on our first floor plan. As you can see, this is a two bedroom home and will need to select the type and location of each light fixture for each room of this home. I like to start in the main living area and move outwards from there. Now, as you know, you ideally want, have three layers of lighting in each room and, being task an accent lighting. While some designers may start with the ambient lighting, I and many other designers actually prefer to start with a task lighting. Why? Well, for me, it's function of reform when it comes to lighting, and I want to ensure that all of the functions or tasks that will be taking place in this room will be appropriately lit first. Okay, let's go ahead and get started in terms of task lighting for this living room. It's important that all seating areas have task lighting for hobbies like reading, computer work, sewing, etcetera. So I'm going to place a floor lamp on each side of this sofa and a table lamp on the table in between the two armchairs. As you can see, there is also a desk in the corner of this room, which definitely needs task lighting. So I'm going to place a desk lamp on the left side of this desk now for ambient lighting. There are many possible options to consider, such as a number of recessed can lights, a chandelier, a large pendant. But I'm going to go ahead and use a large flush or semi flush mount light over the coffee table for this space. As far as accent lighting, the corner plant is an obvious candidate for floor can up light, and likewise, the plant on the balcony would look great with a spike mounted plant pot up light. And since the balcony is so visible from the living room, streaming some lights along the top of the rail of the balcony will provide some great mood lighting in the evening, both inside and out. Moving on to the breakfast table on appropriately sized pendant would be ideal over the table to provide task lighting in this one wall kitchen. I'm going to install three swing arm pendants near the ceiling to provide needed task lighting for the entire length of this kitchen. And I will add to can lights based appropriately in front of the kitchen cabinets to provide the ambient lighting for the space. Note that if there were upper cabinets in this kitchen, I would simply install under cabinet lighting for task lighting. I'm also going to install led strip lights in the tokic of the lower cabinets for accent lighting, and if I place them on a motion sensor, they will act as a nightlight late at night. Now I'm going to move on to the master bedroom. We definitely need task lighting near the bed for reading, so I will add a table lamp on each night stand. This large case good item is a freestanding wardrobe for task lighting. I'll place led strip lights within each main compartment and place them on motion sensors. So the only light up when the door or drawer is open. Now let's move on to ambient lighting. Let's say that this home is in the part of the world as hot year round. It's not uncommon to install ceiling fans at least into the bedrooms to keep the room cool for sleeping. So I'm going to go ahead and do that now. Now you get use a fan with a light kit, but I don't like that idea for a bedroom. And here's why. The's fixtures typically don't provide enough ambient light for a room, and they're often paired with recessed can lights. But I don't think these fixtures, even when placed on dimmers, provide the right type of soft lighting that people typically like to have in their bedrooms. So instead, I'm going to his tall wall washers on two walls of this bedroom, which will provide a softer, more diffused ambient light source. I didn't include a wall washer over here because of table lamp will help to provide lighting to this corner of the room for accent lighting. You might have noticed that there is artwork noted on the floor plan over the bed. I could use a picture light, but I think that will be to visually heavy and distracting for artwork over a bed where the bed should be the focal point. So instead, all installing directional recess can light to highlight the artwork. Moving on to the second bedroom, likely a Children's bedroom. I'm going to add a single swing arm sconce over the bed for reading a desk lamp for the desk at a small table lamp for the dresser for Ambien lighting. I'm going to add in a larger tor she a lamp in the corner, which will throw light to the ceiling and should fill in any additional lighting that's not already provided by the task lighting. Next, we have the bathroom for task lighting. I'm going to install a pair of sconces on either side of the vanity for Ambien lighting. I'm going with a flush or semi flush mount light and because I'm imagining that the wall behind the bathtub is an accent wall such as stacked stone. All install some wall washers either for wall washing or wall grazing, depending upon what the application ends up being on that wall. Okay, are we missing any areas? Yes, we haven't provided any light in the entryway, so I'll add either a semi flush mount light or a pendant light. Here. I'll also add a picture light on the large piece of artwork here. Now, looking at this plan, it seems pretty thorough. And there are some guidelines of designers used to ensure that lie implant is done well. First, it's important that we don't have any dark or shadowy corners in a room now. This can easily happen in larger rooms if you aren't careful. Do you see any dark corners? No. I think we've provided sufficient light to all areas of the truth. Second, it's important that each room have a variety of light fixtures, meaning not all table labs or not all can lights. Part of a good lighting scheme is to provide visual interest to a room, and that won't be accomplished with a single fixture or just one type of fixture. Have I accomplished that with us? Home? Yes, finally, it's important that there is a variety of intensity in your life. This is easily accomplished. Provide that you've insured. You're working in layers. This is because, as you might remember, task lighting should be about twice as bright as your ambient light and your accent lighting should be roughly three times as bright as your ambient light. So if you ensure you have multiple layers of lighting, you should have varying intensities. Have I done that? Yes, all rooms have at least two layers of light, and most have three. Okay, so now it's time for you to try your hand at creating a lighting plan using another floor plan. Here we have another two bedroom home. What I want you to do is pause this video. Print out the blank floor plan, which you'll find in the resource is section and then using the symbols. I've provided pencil on the type and location for all of the fixtures, and you want to include in each room. Remember, there is no one right answer. In fact, there are likely multiple great solutions for each room. You simply want to ensure that you don't leave any dark areas that you use a variety of fixtures in each room and that he work in layers of light so you vary the intensity of each light in each room. Once you're done with your plan, come back to this video and I'll show you my lighting thin for this home. Now, just a few quick notes. There is a piece of artwork here and a near over here over this long dresser. This is a dresser as well. In the main bedroom. There are no upper cabinets in this one wall kitchen. I know it's unusual, but just roll with it. I think the rush should be pretty self explanatory. I'll see you in a little bit. Okay, welcome back. I hope you found that exercise helpful. Now that you have completed your own lighting plan, let me go ahead and share mine with you in the living room. You can see I've included a narc floor lamp and a table lamp for task lighting. I've chosen Cove lighting for ambient lighting, and I've added a floor can up light behind the plan in the eating area. All install a small chandelier and add a picture light to the piece of artwork behind the table for the kitchen. I'll provide task lighting with matching track lighting fixtures, and I've added to recess cans for ambient lighting on the balcony, all installing indoor outdoor pendant over the table and spike mounted plant pot up lights in the corner plants moving on to the master bedroom for task lighting. I'd added swing arm pendant lights over the night stands and a table lamp on top of the dresser for Andean lighting. I've used a chandelier, and I'll add a floor can up light for the plant in the corner of the room in the second bedroom for task lighting. I've added a table lamp to the night stand, matching sconces on either side of the mirror and a desk lamp for the corner desk for ambient lighting. I've included a flush mount light in the bathroom. I've installed a backlit mirror over the vanity for task lighting, and I've repeated the use of cove lighting for ambient lighting. Finally, I've installed matching flush mount lights both in the entryway as well as the hallway. Since they'll both be in the same line of sight. I hope seeing my version of this lighting plan helped you, and I'm sure you did a great job as well. I'll see you in the next lecture 18. An Important Word on Lampshades: lamps. States are as important of a design element as anything else in your room, from the shape to the color, as well as to how you want to control the light from your fixture. Lampshades aren't I am meant to be given careful consideration, said another way. The right shade will perfectly compliment and accentuate the overall design of a room. But the wrong shade will make a room feel out of step or simply outdated. Clearly on undesirable result. Let's talk about some technical aspects first. The first consideration is to consider this shape of your lamp base. Do you think that is best tohave the shape of your shade, mimic shape of the lamp base or be completely different from the shape of your lamp base? Well, in general, you want your shade to mimic the shape of your base, meaning if you're bases around, look for around shade if the basis rectangular look for a rectangular shade to go with it. There are, of course exceptions to this, but in general this is a good guideline to follow. Also, consider the table that your lamp is sitting on. If the lamp is round in the table, of square, you may decide you rather go with the square shade to mimic the table rather than the lamp . But that doesn't mean you can't go round or square all the way around, from the table to the lamp base to the shade. It really comes down to personal preference at that point. Next, let's talk about height. Go with the shade as a little more than 1/3 the height of the entire fixture, including the shade, which will ensure that it's the right scale for your lamp, neither too big nor too small. Finally, let's talk about with make sure that the width of your shoot is at least one inch larger in diameter than the widest part of your base, preferably larger but at least a minimum of that size. Also, as I mentioned in a previous lecture, be sure that you're a shade does not extend beyond the edges of the surface that it's sitting on again. It will simply feel out of scale and too big for your space. Now let's talk aesthetics a drum shade, a square shader. Any shade that has the same with from top to bottom gives off a Mork contemporary look. Bell shaped lamp shades give off a more traditional bind. Pleated lampshades are also more suited to traditional styles, whereas non pleated shades fare better in contemporary spaces. Finally, let's talk about the function of different lampshades and how they can completely change the mood of your room. If you are looking for a shade creating more dramatic effect in your room specifically, you want to filter the light so that only shines directly up to the ceiling or down. Two. Your task at hand. Then choose a dark, opaque lamp shade. For example, Black Oh, pick shades are a common design choice in a traditional style home, such as in a home library. Conversely, if you want the fixture to not only provide task lighting but also to provide some Ambien lighting for your room, choose a light colored translucent lamp shade so that the light shines through the shade. This will give off a mork casual, relaxed feeling to your room, so hopefully you can now see that the type of shade you choose will definitely alter the mood of your room. So choose wisely 19. Hide Those Unsightly Cords: There are few things work frustrating to me at least than a beautiful room design marred by the visible eyesore that is electrical cores and by electrical cords. I am referring to our lamp cords, table lamps, floor lamps, plug in sconces, flora, plights, etcetera. Thankfully, there isn't easy solutions to this problem, and I'm going to share with you how I do this fairly quickly and easily in my own designs. First, let's talk about the visible chords that you sometimes see hanging off the back of a console table, side tables and your night stands, not a great look. So how do I solve this problem? I have two words for you. Command clips. These little things are pure genius. While it appears that they were originally intended for hanging items on the wall, they're absolutely great for hiding cords. And here's how. First you want to buy the small ones just big enough to clip a court inside. He's really small ones should be small enough so that they don't poke out from behind whatever tabletop or table leg you're attaching them to. I go for the clear ones, but if they're going to be hidden by the table completely. You're clipping them on, then color probably doesn't really matter. You simply want to attach a row of these clips to the back of your furniture, starting at where the lamp cord begins to go backwards off the table and ending either near the outlet on the wall are on the floor. If the cord needs to go across the floor to get to an outlet, we'll talk more about the second scenario in just a minute. Just one quick point about attaching these clips to your furniture. Be sure to reverse the direction of each hook, meaning one should be facing up and then one facing down so that your cord will stay in place. But first, take a look at this picture where you can see two table lamps on either side of the glass console tables. Clearly, these lamps have cords, but they're not immediately visible, are they? But if you look closely, you can see the cords on the wall where they plugged in where the two console tables of meat in the middle. If the's cords had been a clear color, they would be even more invisible. But because they are dark you can see them if you look for them. I was able to achieve this. Look with about seven command clips for each console. Table space about seven inches apart. Now what do you think you should do if you have to run? Accord along the ground to the wall outlet? Do you think the answer is a cover with a rug? Be covered with a floor court cover or see either option is fine. Well, you might be surprised to learn that the answer is B. A court cover is best now. You can't cover with a rug, but I would Onley do that as long as you won't be stepping on that part of the rug. Otherwise, this is a safety hazard. If a rug will be going over the cord and you do have to walk on that part of the rug, then use a cord cover under the rug. Safety first. Always. Now let's talk a little bit more about cord covers first, provided it won't be used under a rug. I will ensure that my court cover is the same color as my floor, second only to choose whether I want a court cover that adheres to the floor or one that just lays flat on the floor. If the court cover is going to be in an area where people will not be walking over or through, then I choose the ones that don't have adhesive because sometimes the adhesive can damage the floor, particularly wood floors. But the cover needs to be placed in a high traffic area than I would likely go with an adhesive one. Otherwise, the cover itself becomes its own tripping hazard. Don't forget that curtains can make a great concealer of cords as well. For example, if you have a floor lamp in the corner of a room and there are curtains next to it covering the outlet, then you should easily be able to hide that cord behind the curtains. Finally, for cords that are hanging down your wall from plug in sconces, pendants or chandeliers, I would invest in a paint herbal cord cover made for adhering toa walls that you can purchase online through a retailer like amazon dot com or at your local home improvement store. You can either paint it the color of the wall to blend in or, if you want to accentuate it. You could painted the same color as your fixture, for example, a dark bronze color. Now, if all of this seems like way, way too much work for you, then there is one other solution. There are a limited, currently limited number of Cordless led lamps on the market available today. Many are for outdoor applications, but there are some that look like they belong inside the house. Thankfully, for some examples of these lights, check out modern lantern dot com Not a huge selection yet, but it is an alternative which ever option you choose to go with. The bottom line is that there are plenty of solutions available today to make sure that you don't ever need to live with those in sight records. 20. Control your Natural Light: Choose the Right Window Coverings: as I spoke about earlier in the course. Natural light is simply wonderful. To RECAP has the best color rendering. It offers us tremendous biological benefits, and most importantly, it's free. But just like with anything, there's something to be said for too much of a good thing, and that's no exception when we're talking about sunlight. So as a result, the world of window coverings came into existence, and thankfully, not only do they do a fantastic job of helping us to control sunlight, but they are often beautiful as well. I personally love the look of drapes, but I hate the idea of having to draw the curtains or drapes throughout the day. Even if I have a traverse Draper a rod, which allows me a pull on accord toe open and close my drapes. It's just too much of a hassle for me, particularly since I usually work from home. So what I do instead, when I want tohave sunlight throughout the day. But I still need privacy and want to keep the heat of a bit. Is this I will use a double rod curtain rod and hang shares on the back rod so light will still filter through, and then heavier curtains on the front rod toe act as decor Onley during the day when they were pulled to the side, and better yet, can be pulled closed in the evening to block out more light and create complete privacy. This is a great look for many style of including traditional transitional, English country, Mediterranean and bohemian, just to name a few. Other window covering options that provide privacy but still filter light really well include light filtering, roller shades, cellular shades and solar shades. If privacy is not a consideration and you just want to be able to block light partially during your day or completely at night, then look to room darkening Roman shades. Plantation shutters would blinds and woven shades. Let's not forget that window shades often help to control our energy costs by helping to hold the heat in during the winter and then keeping our homes cool during the summer. The bottom line is that there are plenty of great window treatment options, regardless of your goals and your style and at all price points. So be sure to take advantage of this beautiful interior design element. In the next section, we will be talking about how to control your artificial light. I'll see you there 21. Control Your Artificial Light: Always Use Dimmers: dimmers, our cans down, not only a must have, but truly your best friend. In the wonderful world of lighting design, nearly every single ambient light source in my home is on a dimmer switch, and yours should be, too. Some would even refer to dimmers as the best kept secret of lighting design. Now, if it isn't obvious why, let me explain to you in one word, flexibility. Dimmers give you complete flexibility to control, not on Lee the light intensity in your room the more importantly, the mood, which is one of the main goals in design. For example, let's take your dining room. You may want your fixtures fully lit when playing a fun family game of trivial pursuit, but you definitely are going to want to turn that light down when throwing a fabulous dinner party. Dimmers are a super quick job for a license electrician's, but I have known homeowners to do this successfully on their own. That said, I personally have my electrician's do it because any time I am messing with electricity, I prefer to have a professional do it for me. Now. What's great about dimmers and switches is that you could choose to have multiple fixtures attached to the same switch and thus the same dimmer. How cool is it when you can turn down the chandelier and the table lamps at the same time? I'll tell you it is super cool or even better, create two different zones in your room, based off of two switches. One option is have one switch with a dimmer, controlling all of your ambient and your test lights in your room and then have another switch with a separate dimmer, controlling all of the accent lighting in your room. The second option is to have one switch controlling all of the lighting in the middle of your room, such as a seating area, for example, and then have another switch controlling all the lights around the perimeter of your room. Both choices will give you ultimate flexibility in your space. One exciting thing that you may not know about dimmers is that they don't have to be limited to just your overhead light fixtures. You can also find dimmers for your table lamps for a very affordable price as well, so feel free to go crazy in this area. Finally, dimmers also allow you to consume less power and extend the life of your bulbs. So it's a win win. Hopefully, I have convinced you now that dimmers are truly a must have. So if you haven't installed them already, I recommend that you put them on your to do list. I am confident that you will thank me. 22. Purchase Your Lighting: My Favorite Places: now that your head is swimming with all of the information on how many fixtures to buy, what type of fixtures to buy and where to place them, you're probably now wondering, well, where is the best place to buy them? As a designer, I generally purchased my lighting through trade Onley sources. But I do have some great retail recommendations that you can use as well. Not all but most lighting retailers carry fixtures in a variety of styles and often a variety of price points, which makes it easier on the consumer. My retail go to places for lighting that meet the above criteria. Meeting a variety of styles and price points includes lamps, plus shades of light dot com, Wayfair dot com and Overstock dot com. Now, if you're looking for higher and contemporary life fixtures than, definitely check out why. Lighting dot com If money is no object than please do yourself a favor and look at circuit lighting dot com Amazing fixtures, but definitely on the price. Your side Now for those of you in Europe, check out fashion for home dot com masons du monde dot com and for some higher end lighting fixtures. that allow you to customize check out delightful dot you now. Conversely, if you are a budget shopper and like contemporary fixtures, then I Kia definitely has some decent options for folks based in the U. S. Check out HomeGoods and at home, which both often have great finds in the area of table lamps and floor lamps. I hope this information helps you and I wish you happy shopping. 23. Activity #3 - Continue Working on Your Lighting Guide: 24. Use Light to Alter the Intensity of Colors in Your Room: one cool way to use lighting in a home is to alter the amount of light in your room to change the way the colors of your furnishings read more specifically with a lower amount of light colors, will appear darker and less bright. This may be the effect you want in a bedroom, a home library or a dramatic bathroom in brightly lit rooms. Colors will re brighter and closer to their true color. Another way to consider what type of lighting to use. Specifically. What light bulb do you want to use is to look at the color scheme of your room. If you have a cool color scheme of blues, greens, violets, etcetera, then fluorescent light bulbs or led bulbs with a higher kelvin rating will pair better with your cool colors. Conversely, incandescent bulbs or led bulbs with a lower kelvin rating are warmer light and will work well with a warmer color scheme, meaning color schemes incorporate red, orange and yellow color families. So now that you have an idea of how the intensity and the color temperature of light can change the way a color reads, let's now go ahead and talk about some common design dilemmas and how we can use light to fix them. First, let's say that you have a wall color that is just too bright. Sure, you could go ahead and repaint it. Or a simpler approach is to simply adjust the lighting. If you have all there to break and you have a bright ambient light fixture in the middle of your room, that is going to be the wrong solution. Instead, you can do easy things. Help tone down those walls first. If you don't already have one, I would install a dimmer so that you can turn down the overall Ambien light, which will help. But then I would be sure to have adequate task lighting throughout the room with opaque shades to minimize the amount of ambient lighting that will shine on those bright walls. However, the directed task lighting will ensure that you have sufficient light to meet your needs in that particular room. Another design dilemma could be the exact opposite problem. Let's say that you live in the Northern Hemisphere like I do, and you have decided to lighten up the color scheme of a room that happens to be northern facing with few windows. This room, because of its orientation and because it has fewer windows, is going to receive ah, lot less light than a Southern facing room with a lot of windows. So you go out, you choose a beautiful white pink color. Maybe you purchase a new light gray sofa and some white chairs and even at in some nears to the room. But you realize that the white paint and the light colored furniture pieces are reading as dingy. For some reason, what's a person to dio? The answer is in the artificial light fixtures. A few tricks to solve this problem would include ensuring you have good handy in light in the room with light bulbs that have a cooler color temperature toe. Amplify the light cool colors in your room. I would also make sure that I use white or off white translucent lampshades for my task lighting fixtures. And finally I would install wall washers to provide bright, even illumination to all of those walls. For those who don't want to incur the expense, though, of installing wall washers, even placing corner up lights or corner tor she a floor lamps would shine upward will help tremendously by amplifying the light on the walls and using cool colored bulbs, you will absolutely brighten your white walls and your light furniture. I hope these examples helped to illustrate how fantastic lighting can be when dealing with color dilemmas in a room. I look forward to seeing you in the next lecture. 25. Use Lighting to Make a Room Appear Larger or Smaller : As you may know, using light pink colors generally helps to make a room feel larger and darker. Pink colors generally help a room to feel smaller and cozier, which is sometimes a good thing when you have a very large space. Or you want to accentuate the already cozy feeling that you have in a room. Like in a home library, for example, lighting can help toe amplify whatever effect that you may be trying to achieve through pink color alone. Specifically, let's first talk about the scenario in which you have painted your room a light pink color to try and make the room feel larger. Many people just stopped there, but if you do, you are missing out on a great opportunity to make that pink color work even harder for you through the use of good lighting. Specifically, you could easily amplify this effect by lighting up all of your walls due to the fact that a rooms perceive space is affected by the amount of light reflecting off of the surface of the walls. So what's the best way to light up your walls? My go to fixtures include track lighting, recessed wall washers, corner Tor she a floor lamps and wall sconces that have light shining both up and down the wall. All of these fixtures are great for lighting up your walls in a fairly uniform manner, which is the goal when you want to make your room feel larger. Now let's go ahead and briefly talk about the mechanics when lighting up walls from the ceiling with track lighting and recess wall washers, your goal is the light up 8 to 9 feet of the wall, and you might remember from the earlier lecture on light fixture placement that you conducive that by placing a light source on the ceiling approximately 2 to 3 feet away from your wall. In rooms that have ceilings up to nine feet for ceilings between nine and 11 feet high, you want to go ahead. Aim to install the fixtures about 3 to 4 feet from your wall. In addition, the lighting up the walls make sure that you are also lying up all of the corners as well with your fixtures. We definitely want to avoid any dark corners when the focus is on, making the room feel larger. Now, while lining up all of the walls will definitely go a long way to helping your room feel larger than actually is. There are a couple of other recommendations I would also like to make first, if you are blessed with high ceilings but not a lot of square footage, hang long dependence or a long light fixture in your room in lieu of just traditional table or floor lamps, as this will emphasize the vertical spacing your room and increase the overall visual space of the room. Also, be sure to use light colored translucent lampshades on your table and floor lamps tow. Amplify the ambient light shining throughout the room. Finally, don't forget about the magic of natural light, which can also be harnessed toe. Help a room feel larger? How well did you know that natural light were easily reflects off of polished surfaces such as Wal Mears? Well, it definitely does. And as you might remember from lecture three by placing a wall near opposite a window, you will easily help to amplify that light throughout the room. Now let's talk about how we can use light to help a room feel smaller, or when you want to magnify the feeling of coziness in a particular space. In this scenario, perhaps you have started by painting all or part of the room, a darker, warmer color that is a great start. To help amplify that effect, I would use a number of table lamps or floor lamps with traditional opaque shades positioned away from the walls throughout your room, if possible. And I would pair lease of the low light chandelier for a chandelier on a dimmer placed in the center of the room. Your goal is simply to avoid lighting up the walls as much as possible and instead using light to help visually minimize the amount of perceived space. Said more simply, you're going to use light fixtures to draw a newer, smaller perimeter within your room. Makes sense. Excellent. And that's how you use lighting to make a room feel larger or smaller than it is. 26. Use Lighting to Create a Focal Point: As you may know, all rooms need a focal point. It's a function of great interior design. It gives your eyes someplace the land. It helps to define the mood or theme of your room. It provides balance to the room, and the bottom line is that all rooms designed well will have one. A focal point also will dictate how you arrange the furniture in the room. More specifically, you will want to arrange your furniture typically around your focal point to further establish that element as the rooms focal point. Natural focal points often include fireplaces, a great view from a large picture window, a feature wall of beautiful artwork, a unique wall treatment, a large piece of furniture such as a family heirloom or even a beautiful ceiling treatment . But sometimes you will find that a room lacks a natural focal point or has multiple great features that are competing for that coveted focal point spot. So what can one do in that scenario, you can likely guess by now you create one through the magic of lighting. Why does this work? It's because your eyes naturally drawn to the brightest point in the room. So by simply adding some well thought out accent lighting. You can easily create your rooms. Focal point. First, let's talk about the scenario in which the room lacks a natural focal point. Perhaps the room doesn't have a fireplace. It lacks a great view, and there isn't currently anything that draws your eye Now. In this scenario, you will need to use a combination of furniture, decor and or a paint as well as lighting to create your focal point. What is the option is the paint your ceiling a dramatic color or add molding and then install a dramatic chandelier to draw attention to your in your ceiling. Another great option would be to place a large console table book shell or any large case good item on one of your main walls and then place a similarly large eye catching piece of artwork over the table or bookshelf. Do you see how your eyes automatically drawn to this vivid piece of artwork on the left wall? You could also add a few pieces of decor to the table or bookshelf that complement rather than draw attention away from the artwork, something along the lines of vases or bowls that have the same color as the artwork. While this been yet may draw your attention on its own, you will be sure to make this the focal point by installing some accent lighting on the ceiling, such as track lighting. To highlight the beautiful artwork. You could also install a feature wall of floating shelves to display beautiful items or unique collections such as this Lego collection. You can see that the track lighting highlights the various Lego creations in this room. Now let's talk about that scenario in which there are multiple items competing for the spot of focal point. This could be a room with a beautiful fireplace, large picture windows combined with a fantastic view and perhaps a unique architectural detail as well. It sounds like a dream scenario, doesn't it? But in this situation, you're still wanna have a focal point in your room, so you'll need to choose which element you want to emphasize, or which element you want your eye to be drawn to upon entering the room. So how do you think you would choose? I would make that decision by asking myself a few key questions. First, I would look to identify which of the elements is naturally the first thing you see when you walk into the room based on its location in the room. Often it's the wall opposite the entrance to the room, but that may not be the best choice. And here's why. I would test out that choice by looking at the shape of your room as well as the furniture in the room. And then I would determine whether or not the furniture can easily be arranged around that focal point in a way that is both functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. If it can't, then I would ask myself which of these elements are naturally the most beautiful or interesting. I can tell you that if you have a great view than that is almost always what is going to be , naturally, the most appealing and eye catching. So then I would again determine whether or not the furniture in the room can easily be arranged around that focal point. If it can't for whatever reason, I would simply determine would toe the rooms. Focal point options allows me to create the best furniture arrangement for that room. Perhaps it's the fireplace. This then would likely be the choice for my new focal point. Now my job is simply to establish that element as the rooms focal point. And I would do that with lighting and perhaps a couple of additional design elements as well. For example, with a fireplace, I could install some wall washers on the ceiling toe light up that fireplace, or, if you have a really gorgeous fireplace, surround such a stack stone, weathered brick or beautiful wall panels. Then I would go with a wall grazing application to highlight those textural elements. Another option would be to place two large plants on either side of the fireplace and then placed some bright up lights on the ground behind your plants. Or some plant lights that are placed in the soil of the plants to create formal symmetry with the lighting and greenery to frame your fireplace. Actually placing any two matching items on either side of that fireplace, such as bookcases or console tables with accent lighting on those particular pieces or even just large wall sconces will also help to establish your fireplace as a focal point of your room. Let me go ahead and give you another example, where you have multiple competing focal point elements. Let's say that you have some gorgeous artwork on one wall and a beautiful cabinet that happens to be a family heirloom on your opposite wall. I would go through the same questions I asked myself a few minutes ago to determine which feature should be the focal point. Let's say that the answer ends up being the artwork for lying. I would use picture lights, track lighting or wall washers to highlight the artwork, but I would also likely add a wall treatment to further distinguish the artwork as my focal point. I would do this by either painting the wall with the artwork, perhaps a few shades lighter or darker than the rest of the room, or perhaps installing some wallpaper that highlighted but did not compete with the artwork I want to share with you one final example, which includes having your windows and the view beyond be the focal point for your room. Now this 1 may seem a little trickier, because how would you accentuate that element as a focal point of the room, other than arranging your furniture around the window? I mean, because after all a window is a major light source for your room on its own. Well, in this case, I would rely on color and texture. To do this. Specifically, I would install some drapery panels in a luxe material on either side of the window and make sure that I install them high and wide to help my window appear even larger than it is . This approach would work particularly well in the traditional transitional modern French English country Art Deco and begin in styles just the name a few. Now, for the more pared down style, such as contemporary industrial and have been modern, for example, I would instead use um, formal symmetry on either side of the window, such as with style. Appropriate floor lamps are perhaps other pieces of furniture to frame the window again, establishing it as the focal point. A final, important note about focal points and the point is this. Be sure that whatever element you choose as the focal point ensure that the element is one of the tallest features in the room. Now, if the focal point is a tall piece of furniture, then you're all set. But if it isn't here, some ways to extend the elevation vertically. If it's a fireplace with just your standard mantle, then you can either place a large piece of artwork or a Tom here roughly 6 to 10 inches above the mantle to help extend your eye upward. If the fireplaces on a pop out wall. Then you can paint or wallpaper the wall around the fireplace and to the ceiling again, visually drawing your eye up. If your focal point is a window or a bank of windows than, be sure to hang your curtains high and wide roughly five inches down from your stealing or your crown molding can to draw your I upwards. Finally, if you're focal point is artwork. Be sure that your artwork is large enough that even when hung at the correct height, it is still one of the tallest elements in your room. And the correct height for artwork is toe. Hang it so that the center of the picture is between 60 and 66 inches from your floor, and there you have it how to use lighting. Specifically, accent lighting toe help create the much needed focal point in each of your rooms 27. Activity #4 - 2 Case Studies - Let's Improve the Lighting!: Now that you've learned all the ways that you can improve the lighting in your home, let's walk through two case studies together to see how the lighting schemes can be improved, specifically a living room and then a bedroom. First, I will give you some guidelines, and then I will ask you to pause the video and write down your thoughts on what improvements should be made. Once you've done that, you'll come back to the lecture, and I'll share my thoughts with you on what improvements I would make. And you can compare your recommendations to mine. Ready to get started. Great. Here's a nicely designed mid century modern living room. I want you to consider the following questions. Is there sufficient task lighting for the entire visible space that you see in the picture ? If not, what would you add? One about ambient lighting? If not, what type of fixture or fixtures would you add? What do you think is the focal point of this room? Is there a way to add lighting to reinforce that it's the focal point? Are there any other places you can add? Accent lighting? What about natural light? Is that being controlled. And if not, how can it be done? Also, is there a need to make this room feel larger or smaller than it is? And if so, how can we do that with lighting? Finally, be sure you're lighting Plan does not leave any dark areas or corners that you use a variety of light fixtures and that your fixtures provide a variety of intensities. Okay, go ahead and posits video and write down your notes. And when you're done, please restart the video. Okay, great. Here are the changes I would make. First, let me just say that there is definitely no where near enough artificial light in this room , which I'm sure you would also agree with. Let's start with the task lighting. I would swap out the pharmacy floor lamp in between the two armchairs for a style appropriate floor lamp like this that effectively provides lighting to both chairs rather than just one chair for this love seat. I would replace the accessory with a table lamp and at a slim profile floor lamp on the other side, because the love seat and sofa are so close together the table and can also provide lighting to the left side of the sofa, I'll place a matching slim profile floor lamp on the right side. I would also install recessed step lights on the staircase for Ambien lighting. I wouldn't be able to resist installing one of the classic mid century modern chandeliers like a Sputnik inspired chandelier. The focal point is clearly the fireplace, so I would add a directional recess light toe. Wash the fireplace with lighting as faras additional accent lighting. I don't see any major pieces of artwork, sculptures, bookcases or greenery in the image, so I don't see the need for any more accent lighting. Now let's talk about the natural lighting. It's not uncommon to leave the windows bear in the style, but I personally always want a way to control my natural lighting. So I would add some simple drapery panels on these windows, and if I need a privacy during the day, then I would pair them with some light filtering roller shades and don't see a particular need to make this room feel smaller or larger than it appears, given the ample room and light color scheme. So no additional changes there. Finally, with this plan, I don't see any dark areas or corners. I definitely use a variety of fixtures. And because I included all three layers of light, we will have a variety of intensities. And of course, I'll place nearly every fixture on a dimmer again. There are definitely other possible lighting solutions for this room. This is just mine. Let's look at this room again before and now after. Yes, definitely a big improvement. Now let's move on to our second case. Study a bedroom that is mostly transitional, with some mid century modern elements thrown in. I want you to approach us in the same way and storing these questions as you decide what type of fixtures this room needs and where they should be placed. Pause the video, and when you're done writing down your recommendations, come on back and I'll share with you my solution. Hi again. I hope you had fun with this bedroom. I know I did. I'm going to start off by saying that once again there is no where near enough lighting in this room. So we're going to fix that. Let's start with the task lighting. As you can see, they do have table lamps on the night stance, but they simply aren't tall enough by the standards I discussed in an earlier lecture. As you might remember, a lamp shade on a night stand should sit about 16 to 20 inches, or 40 or 51 centimeters above the mattress. So at the bottom of the lamp, shade is approximately level with your chin when you're sitting up in bed. This means that the lamp is going to be approximately 26 to 30 inches, or 66 to 76 centimeters high. Aiken definitely tell by looking at this that these guidelines are not being met. It's a short lamp sitting on a night stand that shorter than the mattress. So I chose new, taller lamps here and to inject a little more color into this design, I'm choosing a lamp that repeats the blue that we see in the chair and in the bench in front of the bed. We also need task lighting for the chair that's by the window. Ah, floor lamp would work great here. Finally, we want to have task lighting for the mere that's over the dresser. I would install a couple of transitional style sconces on either side of the mere for Ambien lighting. You can see that they do have some recessed can lights, but they also have an electrical box in the center of the room, so installing a beautiful chandelier would be easy enough. So that's what I've done. The focal point of this bedroom, as with almost any bedroom, is, of course, the bed. So because there's no artwork above the bed to highlight, I'm going to add wall washers all along here to wash the entire back wall with this headboard in soft light. Now you may have noticed that there are some decorative branches in the corner, and if I weren't adding wall washers, I would likely at a floor can up light as that would create some really interesting visual lighting effects at night. But the wall washers air sufficient accent lighting for me in terms of natural lighting. It seems quite odd that we have absolutely no window coverings for a bedroom, so I'm going to pare some luxurious velvet drapes in the same shade as a tufted headboard with light filtering, flat room and shades. This is a good size room, but I don't particularly feel the need to make it feel smaller via Lee. Given this lighting plan, I know that I haven't left any dark corners or areas. I've used a good variety of light fixtures and we will definitely have varying intensities of light. Let's go ahead and look at this before and again the after. I think this makes it obvious that an effective lighting scheme really is important to the overall design of a room. I am sure that you came up with your own great lighting plan as well. More importantly, I hope you have found these case that is helpful to you as you go about planning the lighting for your own home. 28. Activity #5 - Complete Your Lighting Guide!: 29. Conclusion and Final Thoughts: Congratulations. Excellent job on completing the entire course. As I mentioned at the beginning, this course was a long time in the making, and I am grateful that you completed this journey with me throughout the course. I walked you through the creation of a lighting fan for a specific group in your own home, and you should now have your own completed blueprint on how to create your own fantastic lighting scheme. Now that you know how to use the sky, you can, of course, uses templates for creating additional lighting design schemes for the other rooms in your home, and I encourage you to do so in residential design. Lighting is sadly and often overlooked aspect by homeowners, but it shouldn't be. However, now that you completed the course, I hope that you can appreciate what a tremendous difference a well thought out lighting fan conduce to truly elevate a rooms interior design and has a result. You'll always make sure to create the best possible lighting plan when designing your own rooms. As always, if you have any follow up questions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send me an email. I am truly happy to help. Thank you so much and happy decorating