In general lighting your space shouldn't be too difficult. You just need to know the proper techniques to use to optimize your space. We've gathered some of the best tips we know of from our years of architectural lighting to help you create the best lighting design in your home.

Get bright and beautiful rooms in your home with the perfect ambient lighting and accent lighting every time by following these helpful tips.

Prevent Shadows In Your Bathroom

Your vanity is no place for artificial light that diminishes your best features.

As interior designers that regularly work with architectural lighting as well as natural light in spaces, we can admit that most bathrooms with stock lighting options are often poorly designed. When you're looking at yourself in the mirror, you don't want to be looking at a skewed version of yourself. Instead, what you want is to enhance specific features so that as you're getting ready in the morning, you can prepare your best self and set yourself up for success.

Our best tip for this is to scrap the singular light source that is typically located over the mirror in your vanity area and replace it with two wall-mounted fixtures on the side of your mirror. This will ensure that you are being lit from the front instead from above, decreasing the likeliness of any unflattering lighting at your vanity.

You'll want to avoid recessed lighting, however, as this type of lighting is typically very unflattering, especially in a small space. Recessed lighting in your bathroom, though functional and a great example of an effective way to brighten a space, will definitely create unattractive shadows, especially at night.

PRO TIP: Lighting designers highly suggest functional lighting that allows you to change the color temperature as well as the brightness of your light settings. This will help create ambient lighting when you want it, is better in terms of energy efficiency, and gives you more options. Keep reading for more on this helpful insight on artificial light.

Emphasize Natural Light In Your Kitchen

As the saying goes: if you got it, flaunt it.

Natural light in a kitchen interior is something of which to be envious. Everyone wants to wake up in the morning, walk over to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and be greeted with a gentle kiss of sunlight rather than the harshness of led lights, florescent lights, or some other form of abrasive, harsh, artificial light. Natural light is always the way to go and as lighting designers, we always try to emphasize it in any bathroom interior that is lucky enough to have it.

Plus, natural daylight has so many benefits, especially when it is in a room that starts off most of our days. Natural light not only improves our mood, but it helps us to wake up and feel energized first thing in the morning. Yes, lighting has that much control over our mood. That's why daylight and bright areas are so powerful.

If you've got natural light, use it to your advantage and try to control it. Ensure that nothing is blocking the bright daylight from filtering into your kitchen interior and be sure that you chose the right type of natural lighting. Include as much of it as possible in your interior design (meaning add more windows in your kitchen if possible), opt for skylights if possible, and use your natural lighting selections to influence the rest of your lighting design. This means considering your lighting design in the textures you include in your space as well as any additional wall lights or wall scones that you will need for when it inevitably gets dark outside.

PRO TIP: Be mindful of the installation and materials you use in your interior design style for your lighting. Ensure that your windows and/or skylights are well ventilated and that you are using quality materials for installation. Not only will this help your kitchen interior look stunning during the daylight or night, but it will be an effective way or lowing your energy costs.

Choose The Right Bulbs In Your Living Rooms

You've got plenty of choices: from cool to warm, energy-saving to lower wattage.

There are a lot of things you have to consider when you get to the stage of actually choosing the type of light bulbs for your lighting fixtures. As lighting designers in charge of elevating interior design style in every space we encounter, we always think of different solutions that balance the need for form and beauty as well as function.

Interior design for residential is all about creating spaces that are gorgeous as well as comfortable. You don't want to walk into your living rooms and not feel relaxed (or at least, prepared to become relaxed) with your family members. This is why ambient lighting in living room interiors is so important. The easiest way to do this is to include warm light and warm light sources in your space.

The right lighting for your living rooms interior (other than natural light options) is soft, romantic, and warm lighting. Use warm LED lights in your wall sconces, table lamps on counters, pendant lights, task lights, or other types of light fixtures to avoid making your space look too clinical and sterile. The perfect bulb will be ones that are between 2700 to 3000 kelvin as it will match the ambient lighting and accent lighting effect given off by incandescent table lamps, wall sconces, wall lights, and other lights. Bulbs with higher Color rendering index (CRI) will also help give off the exact color you want in your lighting scheme as bulbs with lower CRI tend to appear grey. This lighting scheme will always make your artificial light and interior lighting look the most appealing creating a gorgeous effect.

PRO TIP: Ambient light and warm lighting is your best bet in most interior spaces. If the space is intended to be relaxed, low pressure, cozy and calming, then creating ambient light by monitoring the light levels in your light fixtures and ensuring they all have warm light bulbs is the way to go. Keep the harsh, direct lighting for spaces in which you need to focus and be observant such as over your kitchen island for food preparation or office space and work surfaces for careful observations and close range work. Plus, install dimmers to control your lighting and add drama in every space.

Lighting can completely transform your space. This is your sign to up your mood and add beautiful layers to your home through lighting design.

Take your interior lighting design to the next level, the architectural lighting professionals at Stewart-Schäfer can help you. Contact us today to get started.