Lighting in the living room - how to design it?

Lighting in the living room - how to design it? I used to think that this question didn't concern me at all. What to design? You choose a few lamps and that's it. Nothing could be more wrong. What mistakes have we made and what have we decided to solve them?

 

We have a lot of lighting points in the living room, too many. My living room serves as a kitchen and also serves as a dining room. From the living room there is a staircase leading upstairs, where there is also a lighting point, and when entering the living room from the outside, there is a corridor - there is also a lighting point. To sum up: 1 lamp in the hall, 1 on the stairs, 1 in the kitchen, 2 sconces on the wall, a lamp above the table and the main light in the living room.

 

Lighting in the living room

 

I really didn't know how to approach this tricky topic of living room lighting, so ... I guess I came from the worst way - from buying the first lamp, lamps above the table in the dining area. We decided to buy additional lamps for the first one. It was not easy at all and as a result of the already too many points of light, we created an additional 5 points above the kitchen counter ...

 

At some point, we found out, while selecting the next lamps for the first lamp, that actually ... we neither like it, nor we don't feel good in this interior, in a word: it doesn't matter to us.

 

I was so struck by the dislike of lighting in my living room that at some point I realized that I had to change something. I decided that reading guidebooks would be of no use to me, so I'd rather ask a specialist. I asked my friend Kasia, who is an architect, who leads every day Mo Home blog.

 

I told Kasia about what annoys me the most in our living room, what bothers me. Although it is a small, XNUMX-meter room, it has several functions and the multitude and variety of lights overwhelmed. I told her that the most important thing for me is to hang a beautiful lamp above the dining room table, which will be the main decoration of the living room and which does not shine in the eyes, but downwards. I also wanted the rest of the lamps to be invisible as much as possible. Probably, if it weren't for the fact that I was so “amplified” and I was tired of the multitude of various lamps, maybe I wouldn't have such a need for tube minimalism ...

 

I even thought that I am close to choosing a suspended ceiling. It seemed to me that it was the only solution that the suspended ceiling is an ideal place where I can hide all these lights and display only one thing.

 

Fortunately, Kasia advised me what to do with it tube mish-mash.

 

She rightly stated that it is a shame to lose the height of this interior. Our house is not a tenement house in old buildings, where the ceilings are about 3,5 m high, only a terraced house where the ceiling is (and so high) at a height of 2,7 m. She suggested not to lower the ceiling, but to find other solution.

 

Kasia suggested a purchase ceiling lamps. It turned out to be a genius solution that we liked very much. Such a ceiling lamp costs several dozen zlotys, it is attached to the ceiling, and the place of attachment is acrylic. It looks really very uniform and the effect is that after we did this lighting, a lot of guests who came to visit us said, "Oh, you've finally made your own false ceiling!" Therefore, we achieved the intended effect without losing the height of the room, and additionally saving a lot.

 

How to make spot lighting in the living room?

 

The construction team made a furrow, jammed the cables and capped the hole. We have inserted selected ceiling lamps into the cables and that's it. It all came out cheaper than doing the whole construction plasterboard, buying boards, marking, etc.

 

I was delighted with the change. At Kasia's persuasion, I added a few more light points (yes, I, who wanted to avoid a multitude of lamps), i.e. in the hall instead of one ordinary lamp there were three simple ceiling lamps, hanging lamps above the bar in the kitchen I changed to ceiling lamps. The only decorative lamps remained, as intended, a lamp over the table and wall lamps on the wall. The rest are either neutral ceilings or just ceiling lights.

 

Ceiling lamps are also hung in a recess in the living room - the same ones are hanging over the kitchen counter. In the future, buildings will appear in this recess.

 

 

 

 

The central lamp in the living room is ceiling in a very neutral color - is almost invisible.

 

 

 

 

Our living room is slightly Hamptons-like, i.e. there are quilting, stucco, blue accessories ... so we decided to one distinct silver lamp above the table and two matching wall lampsunder which pictures are hanging today. We also have delicate curtain rod lighting in the window recess. The rest is lighting that blends into the ceiling, is not aggressive and is inexpensive. I think this is a brilliant solution to start with.

 

 

 

 

It's been two years since our tube revolution. It is only now that I feel ready to change something, warm and add some other other expressive lamp. Perhaps today, in the middle of the living room, instead of a plafond, I would give a fashionable Vertigo lamp - the same as we have in the conference room of our office - and another, some eye-catching lamp above the table.

 

However, I think that Kasia's advice to give ceiling lights instead of a suspended ceiling is brilliant advice. If I were to advise someone now on how to separate functional zones in such a complicated room so that they do not overwhelm with the multitude of lighting and does not cost a million zlotys, then I would wonder which zone is the most decorative one I want to bet on. For me it was just a dining room, which is why I decided on a decorative lamp here.

 

Now, entering this interior, I am no longer attacked by the multitude and variety of lights, I feel calm. We are very happy with these changes!