Your living room can take on many different bars, it can be used for watching television, reading, listening to music, relaxing and chatting to friends and family as well as being used for hobbies and various pastimes such as playing chess or knitting.
Therefore the lighting in this room needs to be sufficient in order to accommodate such a wide variety of different uses. This is easily achieved by using lighting that is both flexible in quantity and quality. And, instead of having just one mediocre light bulb hanging from the center of the room – you can go wild and give your imagination a run for its money by incorporating down lights, recessed lighting, decorative table lamps, reading lamps, wall lights, maybe picture lights as well to highlight an interesting object, and of course your pendant lighting or chandeliers.
Living room lighting lends itself to being open to many different lighting sources and your mix of indoor light fixtures and fittings should accommodate a wide spectrum of moods and activities.
Generally, many houses tend to have an insufficient number of light fittings to completely satisfy the lighting requirements of the room. A pendant and a few lamps, floor and table lamps, for example, are generally not enough to do justice to living rooms which also tend to be quite large in comparison to other rooms in the house.
As a rough guide, having a couple of table lamps, four to six recessed down lights, a picture light to highlight an ornamental object or painting, some sort of concealed lighting inside a bookshelf or other unit, as well as a floor lamp – are considered a good quantity of light fittings which can be used to properly light up your living room. As you can see, you do not need to have all these different types of lighting and lamps all on at the same time. Rather, for effect, you would have a few lights on depending on what sort of mood you wanted to create and what activities were taking place.
Also remember that when it comes to lighting, the different types of light fixtures are quite versatile and can adapt to suit different lighting requirements. For instance, using adjustable lights means that you can highlight different objects by simply re-positioning the light source from the lamp. Similarly, decorative table lamps can be used not only as an ornamental object but can provide background lighting for performing tasks as well as being a light source for other objects displayed on the table.
Living room lighting is not just about lighting up your room, it’s also about creating a mood for relaxation, or entertaining or just watching TV.
