Lighting is a surprisingly important part of your home. It can change how each room looks, feels, and is used, and that goes doubly so for your living room lighting. If you get it wrong, the whole space can feel… off. And when that happens, you won’t use the space as much as you otherwise might. So, what can you do to make sure that your living room lighting doesn’t let you down?
The Trick to Fixing Common Living Room Lighting Problems
Relying on a single overhead light
Most homes come with one or two ceiling lights installed in the living room. It’s pretty standard and does the job for ambient lighting. But if you leave it like that, you can limit both the functionality and the aesthetic of the space.
How to fix it
Layer your lighting. We’ve said this endless times before, but when you incorporate a mix of ambient lighting styles, you can add depth, mood, and function to a room. The goal is:
- Ambient lighting – ceiling lights
- Take lighting – reading lamps
- Accent lighting – wall lights, picture lights
Ignoring dimmers
Dimmer switches can feel like an unnecessary luxury, but for a small investment, they can have a really big impact. If you can’t dim your lights, you have no room for nuance. Your lights are either on or off. And that means no flexibility and no ambience.
How to fix it
There are a couple of different ways for you to address this problem. You can either install dimmer switches. You can buy smart bulbs. Or you can install lights that have an in-built dimmer, such as the Endon Burley. When you add in dimmers, you can the power to soften or brighten your lighting to suit your mood or your needs. It makes your living room so much more versatile.
Poor light placement
Unless you’re remodelling, you probably don’t have control over your ceiling light placement. But you can pick the position of your lamps. And poor placement here can lead to uneven lighting and awkward shadows.
How to fix it
This is probably the easiest thing you can do to improve your living room lighting, because it simply means thinking about how you use the room, and how it looks. So, use a tubular floor uplighter or floor lamps to avoid any dark corners. And if you don’t have wall lights installed, you can add in plug-in versions, like the Altos Toby, for when you’re looking to make things feel a little cosier.
Missing accent lighting
Accent lighting is your chance to add character and warmth to your living room. When you miss it, the room can be perfectly practical, but it may not feel like home.
How to fix it
This one always comes down to the individual home, but the aim of accent lighting is to add personality and style. So, you might consider picture lights, like the Aston, above artwork. Or uplighters to better define architectural features. They may only be small touches, but they help to make the space more interesting and inviting.
Using the wrong colour temperature
Colour temperature is a funny thing. Very few of us actually think about it when choosing light bulbs for our homes. But if you choose the wrong temperature, or mix bulb temperatures, you’re not only going to create a really inconsistent aesthetic. You’ll create a space that can feel uncomfortable to be in.
How to fix it
Most people choose warm white (2700K–3000K) bulbs for their living room lighting because it creates a cosier look.
Your living room lighting needs to be inviting. That’s the long and short of it. We can’t tell you how to do that, because everyone’s tastes are different. But if you use these loose “rules,” it can help you to make your living room feel that little bit more inviting.
Are you looking for living room lighting? Browse the First Choice Lighting collection.
