How to choose lamps for your apartment - a short guide

How to choose lamps for your apartment - a short guide

Designing the lighting for your home and choosing lamps, is not just about choosing the designs and colors of the shades. If there are 4 rooms in your apartment, you don't need 4 lamps! If you want your interior illuminated properly, practically and beautifully, you need a lot more of them! Below you will find tips to help you properly design your lighting and make the right choice of fixtures that will make your interior look much better and more stylish, and you will feel great in it.

Choosing lamps for your apartment? Remember all types of light and their role in the interior

Before you design the lighting of your apartment and choose specific models of lamps, remember that lamps play different roles in the interior. Some of them (mainly ceiling lamps) are designed to provide general illumination of the room after dark. Other lamps act as a working light, helping household members to do their work, prepare meals, etc. (The most common are pendant lamps, desk lamps or directional spotlights, but also kitchen countertop lighting). Still other lamps create a mood in the interior (table and floor lamps), act as light accents (wall lamps), expose selected points or furniture in the interior (directional fixtures). A very important role of lighting is also to delineate functional zones in the interior, which is particularly important if in your apartment the living room is combined with the kitchen and / or dining room or you have an open space.

Types of lamps and their most popular applications

One of the most common mistakes made when lighting apartments is to equip individual rooms only with ceiling lamps. Remember that you have many types of light fixtures to choose from. They are:

• ceiling lamps (pendants, chandeliers, plafonds)
• wall lamps (wall lamps, plafonds)
• table lamps
• floor lamps
• ceiling spotlights (under- and surface-mounted luminaires and spotlights on rails)
• other types of lighting (illumination of cabinets with LED fixtures or light bars, stair lighting, floor lighting, etc.)

If you want proper, friendly lighting for your apartment, use at least three different types of lamps.

Layered lighting - the basis for choosing lamps for the interior

If you are considering how to light your apartment, you also need to keep in mind one of the basic principles of interior lighting, namely layered lighting. This principle says to place light sources at different heights and in different places in the room. In addition to ceiling lamps, invite table lamps, wall sconces and lamps or floor lighting into your home. Remember directional luminaires and light bars. Light up every corner in the interior and make sure that when you turn off the main light sources in each room and turn on other lamps, you can still move around freely in the room.

What else to look for when choosing lamps for your apartment?

Match the type of lamp to the style of the interior

When choosing lamps for your apartment, make sure that their style, colors, and even the type of material and finish used, correspond to the style in which you decorate your interiors. An apartment decorated in an industrial or Scandinavian style requires a completely different type of lamp than an apartment arranged in a modern classical style, or a monochromatic, economical and elegant minimalist style. About what rules govern the various interior styles and what lamps go with them, read HERE.

Enchant your interior with light!

Light has the power to shape a space, bring out its advantages and hide its shortcomings. With properly designed lighting and choosing the right fixtures, you can make your apartment appear larger or taller, and a long and narrow room more square. You can divert your guests' attention from an uninteresting wall or direct their eyes exactly where you want them to go.

Lamps that work best as architects of the space are lamps with movable fixtures and wall lamps. Directional light and wall lamps highlight and shape the space, and with a properly positioned stream of light, we can not only highlight a decorative coffee table or a beautiful painting, but also highlight the texture of the walls, the pattern on the wallpaper or make the room seem taller.

Remember mood lighting and the right light temperature

Light is the best mood creator. Can lift your spirits after a bad day at work, create a romantic mood or an intimate atmosphere conducive to confidences or an evening of tranquility with a book and a cup of your favorite tea. How to create a cozy atmosphere in your apartment?

First of all, don't illuminate the interior only with a ceiling lamp. Overhead lamps create unpleasant shadows and glare, and tend to give off a strong, blinding light that is not conducive to a friendly atmosphere. By mixing different types of fixtures and complementing pendant lamps with wall lamps, table lamps and floor lamps, we can easily adjust the light intensity to the time of day and create the desired mood. Design your lighting so that you have separate "lighting sets" for day and evening, for work and for relaxation. In the living room, just turn off the ceiling lamp and light the table or floor lamps. In the bedroom, bedside lamps will make the atmosphere, and in the bathroom, candles, wall lamps and additional directional sconces will work well, which you will use in the morning to put on makeup and which you will not light in the evening, getting ready for sleep.

Another factor affecting the right mood in the interior is the right light temperature. Warm light facilitates relaxation and tranquility, promotes relaxation and intimate conversations, while cold light stimulates action and promotes work, focus and concentration. Of course, depending on the time of day and activity, you need both types of light, but make sure that the bulbs in table lamps, wall sconces or floor lamps - the light sources with which you most often want to create a mood - are the right color temperature and conducive to relaxation. You can find more about light parameters and temperatures HERE.

If you care about the mood lighting of your apartment, also remember to choose the right shades and lampshades. Soft, diffused, muffled light has a soothing, calming effect, so choose shades in milky white, covering the bulb, and table lamps with lampshades made of soft, thick fabric.

Don't forget to light the table

When choosing lamps for your apartment, don't forget about additional table lighting. The table is the place where you spend a lot of time, meeting with family and friends. At which you celebrate important moments, but also everyday moments - a cup of morning coffee or a mug of hot tea.

Hanging lamps, suspended 75-80 cm above the table top, perform best as table lighting. Choose a lamp with a round shade for lighting a small, round table or several shades or a lamp on a plate or ceiling bar for lighting a longer table top. An alternative to a pendant lamp can also be wall lamps (if your table is adjacent to a long wall) or a floor lamp, placed at the shorter edge of the.