Lighting Trends
Our choice of lighting and how we use it can have a dramatic effect on how we enjoy our homes. It can enhance our room colours, provide functional efficiency where needed and offer us a sense of safety and security.



> Fluorescents
> Types of Lighting
> Impact of Lighting



Fashion lighting

Lighting is a very important part of an interior designer's armoury. It is essential in getting the look and feel right for a room at all times of the day when natural light is variable and at night.

It also makes sense that lighting should change as fashion (and available technologies) change. Here are some trends that impact on room lighting:
  • Casual elegance - this means the creation of warm, relaxed and comfortable environments with casual lighting that is a little more upmarket in design.
  • Back to basics - this involves the removal of excess. Decorative lighting may be solid brass, but strip it down and give it a rich antique patina.
  • Soft contemporary - is clean, modern and simple in style. While architectural in design, these fixtures are no longer cold.


Lighting Trends











People are also starting to use lighting as a decoration device in its own right. For example, you can use a range of coloured bulbs to throw coloured light onto a wall. A plain white wall will never be the same.

Higher ceilings are also having an impact on lighting trends. With higher ceilings there is a growing trend towards the use of floor lamps that are architectural in style. The lamps are not simply a light source, their interesting and unusual style make them a piece of art in their own right.

Remember, the general rule is that light coloured painted finishes actually reflect light and reduce the need for high levels of artificial lighting


Lighting Trends










Fluorescents

With the high cost of energy, there is a strong movement to designer lighting that take CFLs. (compact fluorescent lamps). These are now dimmable, last longer and are much cheaper to run than conventional incandescent bulbs.

Warm white or daylight fluorescent lamps (about 3000 K) provide light similar to an incandescent bulb and can be used in kitchens and living rooms. Cool white tubes have a higher colour temperature (about 5000 K) and are suited to garages and workshops. If you mix different types of lighting in a room try to use similar colour temperatures. And remember, the higher the wattage, the higher the running cost.

Fluorescents use 70% less electricity than conventional incandescent lamps. While they are more expensive than incandescent light bulbs, they have ten times the life.


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