Blog

The living room is possibly the most important room in your entire house. From movie marathons to hosting family, or enjoying a quiet read in the evening, most of your activities will take place in the living room. Therefore, getting the lighting is key to creating a pleasant, relaxing atmosphere.

Lighting is often a bit of an afterthought when it comes to designing our homes. We plan the colour scheme, the furniture and the positioning. But when it comes to the lighting, we often just pick a nice shade and stick it in the centre. However, we are going to explain just how to combine different elements to truly make your room the best it can be.

What Lighting Is There to Choose From?

It’s not just as simple as sticking loads of different lights in your room and hoping that it works. There should actually be three different layers to your living room lighting. If you get the right balance, it should create the perfect ambience in your room.

• Ambient Lighting: this is your general, all-round illumination for the whole room
• Task Lighting: this is the more directed light, towards areas that require a little extra light for concentration on work
• Accent Lighting: Highlighting light for specific objects or areas – includes photos or posters, and adds drama to the room

If you get this combination nailed, it will eliminate shadows throughout the room, and ensure the perfect blend of lighting is attained.

Why Is the Lighting Important?

We’ve already mentioned how many different uses the living room has – for relaxing and socialising. This is why the lighting is vital for changing the atmosphere. Use brighter lights when you need to feel awake – socialising with guests, for example, and use softer lights for chilling around the TV. The best thing to do in order to maintain these different atmospheres is to use dimmer switches. By controlling the intensity of the lighting, you’ll be able to either promote interaction, or help yourself relax and wind down.

Deploying Strip Lighting

If we’re being honest, we’re big fans of LED strip lights here at WLED. We love how flexible they are in their usage, even in the living room alone. You can really let your creativity go crazy when it comes to strip lights – here are a few ideas of how to use them in your living room.

If you have a recessed ceiling, then strip lighting around its edge can give it a lovely glow. It looks superb, and creates a seriously elegant look that highlights the feature of your ceiling. It’s minimalist yet stylish, and still provides plenty of light.

The same effect can also be used in shelving arrangements, too. Less ambient, and more towards the accent lighting, this can be used to create a real feature out of something simple. Try lighting that contrasts against the wall’s colour for a standout, or use soft colours that wash against the wall for a homely glow.

Pendant and Ceiling Lighting

Ceiling and pendant lights are often the main source of lighting for your living room. They often draw the eye upwards, so it’s important that they look good, and keep to the theme of your room. We have hundreds of different options available, with lots of different styles. Try a glass or ceramic light for a more elegant look, or darker metals for a more industrious look.

We have modern wooden styles for a more rustic effect, and sweeping chandeliers that are perfect for larger rooms. You can team multiple pendants together as a group, or spaced out in a grid pattern, for even better lighting. If you’re aiming for a modern décor, then matching ceiling light and floor lamps is always a brilliant place to start.

Task Lighting

The best way to add some much-needed task lighting to your room is with a lamp, whether it be floor or table. For a truly stylish look, why not try placing table lamps symmetrically in your room, either at either end of a sofa, or on shelves in your living room? However, if you’re looking for a quirkier, more idiosyncratic look, then mismatched table lamps dotted around the room at random could really tie it all together.

Floor lamps are a very versatile way of adding either ambient or task lighting to your room. They can of course be moved around, making it easy to update your room’s layout, or move them around to find the perfect position. If you’re tight on space, go for a tall, slim table lamp that won’t take up too much space. A particularly tall floor lamp will accentuate your high ceilings, and an overreaching style will be brilliant for illuminating specific areas. If you need the lighting for reading, then angled lamps are best.

Accent Lighting

Whilst we’ve already mentioned the merits of strip lighting, it can be important to use wall lights and picture lights to eliminate shadows completely, and create the balanced atmosphere you crave. If space is tight, go for more minimal designs, with small slender designs giving you much-needed light without cramping the space. Try to wash light across walls using up and downlighters that take up little space, but truly light it up. Have lights in each corner of the room to make your room seem as big as it can be, and use low-hanging pendants to create the illusion that your ceiling is higher than it is.

If You Need Anything Else…

Speak to a member of our customer services team. They’ll be able to offer you lighting advice for your home, and advise you on what’s best to do. Call them on 0116 321 4120, email us at cs@wled.co.uk, or drop us a message on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.