Artful lighting design is one of the best ways to make any house feel like home. Beautiful light fixtures and illumination will brighten the corners, and make each room more welcoming to both family members and guests. Your choice in lighting can also help to personalize the space, ensuring that your home matches your personal style and unique taste in decor.

You know better than anyone else how each room in your home could be enhanced with the addition of stylish, ambient, and properly illuminating lighting. You can replace your current light fixtures, install new fixtures, and craft a layered lighting design to suit any mood you’re in. Let’s explore seven different types of lighting that you can use to enhance your living space.

1) Light Troughs for Ambiance

Light troughs are diffused lines of light hidden behind a “trough” – usually crown molding or a ceiling recess. Trough lights are a classy, beautiful way to provide indirect light to any room. Trough lights can be used around the upper corner of your walls or, if you have ceiling molding, they can be hidden behind and around your molding structures.

The right light trough design can make your room glow without the glare of exposed bulbs or even the need for visible ceiling lights. They make wonderful ambient light, mood lighting, theater lights, and nightlights.

2) Dimmable Lights to Control Settings

Dimmable lights are a must-have when taking control of your home lighting design. Your lighting isn’t limited to darkness and brilliance, you can enjoy the moody yet visible ranges in-between. With dimmable lights, you can set the light level to match the weather outside, your indoor activities, energy level, or social setting inside your home.

One option is to have light switch dimmers installed. However, you can also add a far wider range of control over your lights with smart bulbs and smart light sculptures instead. Smart lighting gives you flexibility and control over light color as well as brightness.

3) Wall Sconces for Hallways and Accent Lighting

Sconces are extremely stylish in the right setting. Wall sconces are most popular in hallways, corridors, porches, and walkways. In comparison, a hanging light is difficult to place or would make the space feel cramped. However, a decorative wall sconce can also be perfectly placed when flanking other features like a large doorway, fireplace, mounted television, hanging wall art, or a bed’s statement headboard.

The right wall sconce design can help transform a space from plain to eye-catching, and can add personality to any room. Wall sconces are also perfect for unusual spaces that are difficult to light traditionally.

4) Pendant Lights for Decoration

Pendant lights are popular options for any room or space with ceiling coverage. Pendant lights tend to be decorative, but also give you wonderful control over light distribution throughout your house. For example, some pendants provide a spotlight of illumination directly below, while rows of pendants can be used to light an entire room.

Pendants look excellent in a stairwell where high ceilings accentuate the long stem. They are a popular choice for kitchen island lighting as well. Pendants, like sconces, are also great for nooks and odd spaces where only a small light will do.

5) Ceiling Lights for Full Illumination

Ceiling lights, either flush light fixtures or canister lights, are the classic choice when your goal is complete illumination. Pendant and dimmable lights are certainly stylish, but sometimes you need to be able to see every detail of a room. Flush lights can add subtle elegance to a room depending on your choice of light cover. On the other hand, canister lights are designed to ‘disappear’ until their evenly distributed brilliance is needed.

Ceiling lights are often layered with other types of lighting due to their understated utility. Many dining rooms, for example, have a statement chandelier, complimented with a grid of canister lights. This combination is great for mood-lit dining and well-illuminated clean-up afterward. Not to mention family project or homework time under clear and glimmer-free lighting.

6) Lamps for Reading Nooks

One of the best ways to make your home feel cozy is to decorate with lamps. Table lamps, floor lamps, and lamp-style sconces make any seating area look like a welcoming reading nook. Lamps are comfortable and often can be set to three or more brightness settings. You can set up lamps from your reading library to living room between seating areas. For example, to encourage evening conversation, or place a lamp in a nook with a bookcase and chair for the perfect quiet escape.

Lamps are a popular choice in bedrooms. It provides a place to read in bed, or a special comfy chair for reading by lamplight in the bedroom’s corner. Table lamps can put empty surfaces as a statement decoration. While floor lamps can transform inaccessible areas of the room (for example, blocked off by chairs) into a layered lighting design.

7) Chandeliers for Formal Spaces

Last but never least are statement chandeliers. Chandeliers are a long-standing tradition in home decor, but their design has evolved a great deal from the candle-lit fixtures of our ancestors. There are many different styles and even eras of chandelier design:

an Art Deco chandelier
abstract Post Modern chandelier
a sustainable recycled-items chandelier
a classic candle-style chandelier
a glittering crystal masterpiece

Chandeliers are traditionally hung in the dining room, but any public room can feature a breathtaking or fun chandelier. They are increasingly popular above kitchen islands, and in high-ceiling living rooms. In the bedroom, you can install and admire your favorite chandelier as you relax in bed.

Each chandelier defines your space differently, so be sure to explore your options and your personal sense of style when choosing a chandelier for your formal or social rooms.

Explore Unique Lighting Designs with OPENUU

At OPENUU, we have a delightfully stylish collection of lighting designs to enhance your space. From pendants and sconces to eye-catching light sculptures, discover the perfect lighting style to truly personalize your space.

7 Different Types of Lighting Design to Enhance Your Living Space