Taking your decor to the next level is all about properly layered lighting. Layering creates atmosphere and empowers the rest of your design choices to look their best.
Layered lighting can seem technical, even intimidating. However, if you follow a few simple steps, you can achieve great results without getting bogged down in difficult details.
The Three Layers of Lighting
There are three main types of lighting to layer together. Approach them one by one in the proper order, and you’ll find things come together quite naturally.
Ambient Lighting
This is like priming the canvas on which you will build up your design. It’s often achieved with pendant lights – what you might call “the main light” or “the big light” – which illuminate in all directions. Depending on the size of the space, one might be enough, or it might be better to arrange two, three, or even more around the room. However, ambient lighting could also be achieved through recessed lights, or even large wall lights.
In many less designed settings, these will be the only lights, and in those cases, brighter is often better to help light reach the far corners. However, when they are just forming the base of a more nuanced, layered lighting scheme, it’s usually better to go for a softer, more comfortable glow.
Task Lighting
This is the practical lighting. It’s smaller but more focussed, lending extra brightness just to the areas where you really need to see what you are doing. This could be anything from three or four big pendant lights lighting up a kitchen island like a West End stage, to an adjustable wall light that can be pointed where it's needed, or a simple reading lamp that just needs to brighten up a page.
Dedicated task lighting makes sure you have brightness exactly where you need it, without excess light in other parts of the room. Skipping this layer often means the overall effect becomes overly bright and lacks nuance, as other lights have to be stronger to compensate, yet still the far corners are just too dim.
Accent Lighting
If ambient lighting is a primed canvas, accent lighting is the fine detail that lifts your design up to become a masterpiece. Wall lights are ideal for this, though other types such as spotlights or larger lamps can also be effective.
Accent lights add to the overall light level of the room, from several directions for a softer and more even spread, but they also serve an important aesthetic purpose. Firstly, they highlight the key parts of the overall room design, drawing the eye to where you want it to be drawn. This is what you need to consider when placing them – put them near features, centrepieces and so on. Secondly, because they draw attention, they generally form part of the décor. For this reason, choosing designer wall lights, attractive enough to be a feature in themselves, is very often the way to go.
Accounting for Natural Light
Most of the time, you will also need to consider a fourth type of light that is already present: natural light. This is something you will need to work with for the best effect, both practically and aesthetically.
If you have corners that the natural light struggles to penetrate, then you may well want to position some of your task or accent lighting to fill in those patches of darkness. On the other hand, if the sun has a habit of shining directly in a large window and creating harsh, unidirectional light, you may want to supplement the installation with something to soften the effect, such as blinds.
