7 Different Types of Lighting Design to Enhance Your Living Space

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.

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Creating a Soft Ambiance with Decorative Lighting

One of the most relaxing ways to light your home is with a soft ambient glow. In the evening, when you’re winding down for bed or with the curtains drawn for an afternoon movie with friends, having soft lighting in your home allows you to set the mood without stumbling over furniture. Lighting doesn’t always have to be brilliant and illuminating. Lighting can be soft and relaxing instead. In fact, with smart lights, they can be both.

The best ambient lighting comes from thoughtful interior design. Which light fixtures you choose and where you place them will shape your soft-glow environment when you dim the lights at home for rest, movies, or romance.

Diffused Light Strips Along the Ceiling

One of the greatest innovations in recent lighting has been LED strips. These are strips of tiny LED diodes that you can mount anywhere in your home. They illuminate countertops when attached below upper cabinets; they can line your television in a soft glow, or provide gentle overhead light when mounted along the ceiling.

Highlight the lines of your room and beautiful architectural features with the ambient glow of overhead light strips. If you want to soften the twinkle of individual diodes, seek a light rope or use a milky diffuser strip.

Candle Glow Wall Sconces

Wall sconces are a classic way to achieve romantic soft lighting. We have been hanging candles and lanterns on the walls as lighting for many hundreds of years. Wall sconces are reminiscent of candle sconces and hurricane lanterns from our design styles just before electricity was introduced to the modern home. Today, frosted glass or artfully sculptural sconces are a great way to provide soft lighting around the room.

Luminescent Sculpture

There are few things more mesmerizing than a glowing sculpture. Today, you can find dozens of designs in LED sculptures for coffee tables or to mount on your wall. Some are prebuilt to glow and some can even be built into a new glowing sculpture each week using fit-together pieces and your own creative inspiration.

A glowing sculpture is always a conversation piece when friends visit and can add a beautifully futuristic element to your interior design.

Glowing Wall Panels

Wall panels are the new innovation of interior lighting. These diffused LED panels glow in elegant shapes and patterns mounted on your wall. At full brightness, they can illuminate a room and when turned down low they add color-changing ambiance to your space. You choose the design and the light level by putting the panel shapes together in your own unique way.

Pro tip: Use a mounting board so it is easy to rebuild the sculpture if you want to change the style or arrangement of the panels at any time.

Smart Bulb Chandeliers

Today, even your glowing chandeliers can adapt to the mood of the room – and we don’t mean a dimmer knob. Smart bulbs installed into a pendant light array or even a twinkling crystal chandelier give you full illumination and color control of your overhead light fixtures. Smart bulbs are voice-activated or can be controlled silently through a few taps of a mobile app.

In fact, glowing sculptures, wall panels, and light strips can all be found in smart, color-controlled, and voice-activated varieties.

Cafe Style Table Lamps

Table lamps have been a warm and inviting addition to ambient lighting since before the days of electricity. Today, you can find table lamp styles in book shops, cafes, and cozy clubhouses where each cluster of comfortable chairs is softly illuminated by it’s own shaded lamp. Choose your time period and your style or go eclectic because there are hundreds of design varieties of table lamp to choose from.

Soft ambient lighting at home is a relaxing and versatile option. With smart RBG control and an elegant choice of fixtures, you can set the mood easily or bring up the lights for clear illumination when it’s time to clean or find the remote. For more elegant and practical home decor ideas, contact us today.

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How Lighting Enhances Your Space: Lighting Design and Ideas to Transform Your Space

Consider this. When you enter a room enhanced with friendly, inviting light, you’ll instantly feel at ease. But if you enter the same room with harsh or insufficient lighting, your mood flips completely. Why?

Lighting has biological and psychological effects that can affect the health and well-being of humans. Biologically, good lighting designs help stabilize your circadian rhythm, which boosts your overall mood and contributes to a better night’s sleep.

On the psychological part, good lighting can help reduce depression and increase cognitive performance such as reaction time and productivity.

Let’s Shed Some Light:
How to Enhance Your Space Using Lighting

Indeed, lighting is so much more than a nighttime tool. You can spice it with a bit of creativity to make it double as a work of art and enhance your space in so many ways. In this interest, we have made you a brief rundown on how you can use lighting design and ideas to transform your (living, office, or restaurant) space

1. Change the Color Palette of Your Space

Among a variety of choices, adding color is a wise alternative if you need to breathe some life into your space. And don’t shy from the painting costs—a paint job will not be necessary.

You can change your room’s color scheme by introducing pops of brightness with superior lighting fixtures and accessories.

For instance, if you need a bright, playful look in your rooms, you can go for a pendant light or a table lamp. If sleek colors are too extreme for your taste, terrazzo wall sconces are a great way to warm up your rooms without the dramatic hues.

2. Upgrade Your Aesthetics

In this social media era, you can easily get lost in the design trends bandwagon and feel as if your space is outdated and behind time. On the brighter side of things, decorative light fixtures can help you make an excellent comeback and transform your home or office into a beautiful and elegant space.

Consider replacing old lighting fixtures with current lighting design trends that you love. For example, you can add a modern floor lamp or crescent pendants to refresh and awaken your rooms. However, you may want to be careful to select fixtures that complement your current color palette and the overall design sensibility of your space.

3. Establish Flow in Your Space

When you want to divide an open area into distinct “rooms,” you can use decorative lighting to create distinct spatial divides. The open floor plans of new houses have a modern feel, but it can be difficult to distinguish dining, living, or working areas without the walls.

You can add pendant lighting overhead to divide areas; center the lights over each area you want separate. Consider using flush mount lighting in your living space to make it feel more open and relaxing and long hanging pendants over a dining area to create an intimate feel.

4. Add a Personality Statement

Sometimes all your space needs is an extra dose of fun. Does your life or room feel dull and serious? You can add whimsical pieces such as a statement table lamp to add interest. A subtle, modern lighting fixture or accessory will help break up a more traditionally styled space.

You can bring cheer into a serious or dark-toned room using unique accessories such as the LED tree branches decoration.

5. Smart Lighting to Enhance Your Space

With the increasing advancements in technology and lighting control, setting the perfect mood for your space is now easier than ever. Smart lighting and lighting controls are becoming more popular, especially in the hospitality industry, due to their ability to enhance customer experiences.

The ability to control the mood and intensity of lighting is a great milestone for your restaurants. For instance, you can set a brighter atmosphere in the morning to wake customers and an intimate and relaxing mood to calm them in the evening. And what’s more on smart lights and lighting technology…

It’s the geometric assembly smart night light. The geometric night light enhances your rooms with style and accent and is easy to control. Some notable features of the geometric night light include:

Geometric shape- create superior aesthetics for your room by combining multiple panels
Sound and light Interaction- let your lights dance to the tune of the music in your space
Voice control- connect the geometric night light to Amazon or Google Home and control the lights hands-free
Customized color selection: Customize the color of the light to your mood by using an App or manually by sliding your fingertips along each panel

How We Can Help

Whatever your budget, style, or objective, lighting is an excellent way to transform how your space feels when a person walks through the door. At OPENUU, we are an award-winning design studio and believe that beautifully curated objects have the power to enrich and enhance even the gloomiest spaces.

Try something new from our contemporary lighting design selections and feel the difference each time you flip the switch. And for every purchase you make, we donate ten hot and nutritious meals to someone in need.

For more information on how lighting can enhance your space (whether office, home, or restaurant), feel free to Contact Us today, and we will be more than willing to assist.

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