Over the past decade, I have been asked countless times “how can we learn more about lighting?” and even “how can I become a residential lighting designer?” My answers were always rambling and long, mentioning CEU’s, IES, ALA, conferences, RMLA, and others. Mostly what I was saying was “you kind of have to string together a bunch of different things, then go to work with an expert or make a ton of expensive mistakes, and then you’ll be there.”

As you can imagine, I was always dissatisfied with my own answer. So we’ve decided to create a new answer from scratch, the biggest single initiative we’ve ever undertaken. We call it LDX.

LDX is not a certification. It is a designation that says “I am trained, equipped, and supported by leaders in residential lighting.” LDX goes beyond a master class, beyond a boot camp, beyond an internship, beyond a textbook, beyond a webinar. It is a new approach designed to take you further, faster.

After 30 years of professional lighting design and decades of teaching lighting at virtually every level, I found myself surrounded by a team of incredible people doing great residential lighting design every single day. We developed new, easier-to-grasp design theories that make layout faster and customers happier. We built graphics and templates and toolboxes to streamline our work. And now we built a platform for real-time feedback and peer mentorship by our team of experts.

It’s all in LDX. If you want to leave the classroom behind and truly accelerate your career in residential lighting, LDX may be just right for you. Learn more at www.LDX.lighting or watch the 22 minute video introduction on Youtube.

The Simple Gift of Light #10

There is a part of me that wants lighting design to be so complicated, technical, and artistic that no one else tries it, leaving all of the opportunities to me. In this fantasy world- the one where lighting is too complex for ordinary citizens to grasp- I get to grow my business to epic proportions and rule the universe. Fortunately, there is another part of me that believes otherwise.

Light, despite being one of the most intriguing elements of the universe, is simply not that difficult to get right in our homes. So why do I argue that most of us live with awful lighting? Not because it is too complicated or too expensive, but because it takes thought. 

So if I am correct and getting better lighting just takes a little thought, why don’t people think about it? That’s easy- we have enough to think about already. As I write this I have a task list at work a mile long, taxes to prepare and dishes to wash tonight, a dozen projects around the house that need tackling, and a world full of news that rocks the boat on a regular basis. In other words, who has time to think about lighting?

Today’s focus on the Work Zone is a perfect case and point. Lighting for the work we do is quite simple: we need strong, focused, shadow-free light where our hands go, ideally from below our eye level to shield us from glare.

That’s it, blog post is done, now let’s move on.

You know me better than that. Let’s go deeper.

The Work Zone is one of four lighting zones I created to organize my thoughts and make design easier to understand. Typically sandwiched between the Comfort Zone at eye level and the Safety Zone down by our feet, the Work Zone is usually where our hands do things. Sure, sometimes the things our hands do are fun, like playing board games, but even that can be called work if you are a blogger going for simple.

Light in the Work Zone could therefore be called light for our hands. For knitting. For chopping vegetables. For reading, writing, typing, crafting, building, cleaning, and packing a suitcase. Because humans often do work with their hands, the best light in the Work Zone tends to be around waist level. Think tables, desks, countertops, and our laps. And because our eyes do not like bright light- but our Work Zone is best when brightly lit- it just makes sense to place the light below our eye level and to shield it from view.

See what I mean? Not that hard. But oh my, do we get this one wrong all the time.

Instead of placing light in the Work Zone, we often place light somewhere else and hope that it works for everything and everyone, every time. But shouldn’t light be where we need it?

When knitting, at least as far as I understand it, you might want your basket of yarn nearby. Would you put your ball of yarn in a desk drawer across the room from your couch, and leave it there even when you are working? I doubt it. So why is your light over there?

Most lighting in our homes, save a few lamps, comes from above our heads. This is easy to install but, when considering ideal light in the Work Zone, just does not make sense. 

Imagine for a moment that you are reading a real paper book in the living room in the afternoon. The sun sets and evening falls so you turn on the overhead “big light.” In this case it is a ceiling fan with light kit, but it could be wafer lights, a chandelier, or just about any other bright overhead light. Now you have plenty of light on your book, but it is coming from the wrong place. 

The result is glare in your eyes, which subconsciously reduces your level of comfort and may even cause eyestrain and fatigue. You decide to stop reading because you developed a headache. Funny how your headache waiting until the overhead lighting to present.

As you may have noticed, I had a little fun with this one. Once you ask the question “what work do we do in the house – and what if it was in the wrong place?” it is easy to start generating ideas. If I had an editor (or more writing skills), I would omit some of these. Too bad this is a blog and no one is stopping me….

Ready to upgrade your kitchen appliances? Buy our new Out-of-Range adjustable cooktop that automatically raises to 88” whenever you cook to keep the flames away from children’s vulnerable fingers.

This even kind of makes sense – the higher the cooktop, the safer it might be for children. There is just one small problem – it puts the cooktop in the wrong place for your work. Shouldn’t the cooktop be where you need it, where your hands are?

If my deluxe Out-of-Range feels ridiculous to you, why does relying on overhead lighting feel okay?

The solutions vary, but in the kitchen the most obvious is under-cabinet lighting for counters. Overhead lights are so often located above the walkways, behind us, in effect raising the well-lit area above our heads just like the Out-of-Range pushes the cooktop above our heads.

Light below the cabinets, directed towards the countertop itself, provides better light where we need it without causing glare in our eyes. And, when we use modern lensed linear LED fixtures, shadows can all but disappear.

I travel a bit for work, which means I see the inside of a good number of hotel room bathrooms. Most of the time there is a robe hook or towel bar within reach of the tub. It just makes sense – put the towels where you are most likely to need them.

Every now and then I end up showering in a bathroom without such a convenience. Why put the towels where they cannot be reached when you are dripping wet?

Why put light for our Work Zone in the Glare Zone?

Lighting in the Work Zone can sometimes be solved by what is commonly known as “task lighting.” Task lighting is a somewhat vague term that can be applied to many kinds of light fixtures, but the idea is a good one: put the light where you need it.

On a desk, a task light is a lamp that pushes strong light to the desk’s surface without shining in your eyes. 

By a chair, a task light might be a lamp with a soft shade that directs strong light to your book.

In a woodshop, a task light might be a linear LED strip embedded in a horizontal piece of trim about 18” above the workbench…say, what? Confused? That is because, instead of buying a something labeled “work light” or “workshop task light,” I asked myself “how could I get good, strong, shadow-free light onto a workbench without overhead glare?

When we ask the right questions, we get better answers. And sometimes, those answers will surprise us.

When we deliver strong light to our Work Zones without glare, we can…work better.

Giving the Simple Gift of Light #11

We spent an entire post exploring how to illuminate the Comfort Zone in dining rooms and discussing the difference between beam angle and field angle. The Comfort Zone, while very important, is not the only place we need to consider when planning out lighting. We also need soft, reflected light in the Glare Zone, strong, shielded light in the Work Zone, and soft pools of light down low in the Safety Zone.

GLARE ZONE: 1^ST Place

The Glare Zone, the area of our vision often referred to as peripheral, is highly sensitive to glare and that means we need to fight against bright, direct overhead lighting. A ceiling cove with linear LED strips pointed upwards can fill a room with gentle, soft light that is both comforting and functional, all while adding beauty to the room.

GLARE ZONE: 2^nd Place

Most of us will insist on a pendant or chandelier over the dining room table, and for good reason: a good chandelier can light the table and softly illuminate the faces of your dinner guests or family. Sadly, there are far more light fixtures that add glare as well, reducing the positive impact. Picking the right chandelier- one that emits soft diffused light outwards and strong light downwards – can make a big difference in your Glare Zone.

GLARE ZONE: 3^rd Place

Bouncing light off walls is another great way to add light to a room without adding glare. Art, cabinetry, stone features, and special wall finishes all make great reflectors, but even a blank wall can serve to diffuse the light and keep it out of your eyes.

A key to a comfortable Glare Zone in a dining room is to make sure you cannot see a bare light bulb. If you can, a part of your eye will be constantly fighting glare.

WORK ZONE: 1^st Place

The Work Zone is typically where our hands will do tasks; in the dining room, the table and any buffets or sideboards are prime working locations. For the table at the middle of the room, the chandelier is in prime position to provide good, strong light on the dishes, centerpieces, and cutlery, but keep in mind that not all chandeliers deliver good light to the table. 

For buffets and sideboards, recessed downlights near each piece of furniture can provide strong light for work while excess light is bounced softly into the room, doubling as a benefit in the Comfort Zone.

WORK ZONE: 2^nd Place

Table lamps can be a great way to minimize glare, fill the room with soft, comfortable light, and add strong light to work surfaces. A pair of lamps on a sideboard can satisfy all of those desires, but traditional lamps on the dining table will most likely get in the way. Portable, rechargeable lamps are popular in restaurants for good reason: they deliver light to the table with minimal glare and maximum comfort.

WORK ZONE: 3^rd Place

Overhead lighting should be used with care, but sometimes it is the best solution for pushing light to the Work Zone. If a dining room table is too large to be well-lit by the chandelier, or if the chandelier itself is more decorative than functional, recessed downlights located over the shoulders of the table can brighten the Work Zone while minding the glare.

Chandeliers might be worthy of their own post, but for now please just think about what kind of light comes out of the fixture and not just about how it looks when turned off. Lights facing upwards – the only method available when candles provided our light – is a little bit like a showerhead facing the wall. Sure, both will add light or water to the room, but not in a way that is comfortable, functional, or smart. 

Instead, look for fixtures that direct strong light downwards and soft light outwards, with a little light toward the ceiling. They can be hard to find, but you will enjoy the benefits every time you sit at the table.

SAFETY ZONE: 1^st Place

Indoor path lighting is a simple way to enhance the homeowner’s experience after dark. Wall-mounted step lights, recessed into the walls about 18-24” off the floor, do a great job of creating pools of light throughout a home, and dining rooms are no exception. They are easy to install, easy to control with photocells, occupancy sensors, or timers, and use very little energy. More importantly, they allow people to feel comfortable in the home without turning on a lot of overhead lighting. I typically place these near doorways where they are less likely to be blocked by furniture and so they provide visual waypoints to guide people through the room.

SAFETY ZONE: 2^nd Place

Linear light tucked below freestanding sideboards and furniture pieces can cast a soft glow on the floor, adding another layer of comfort to the space when in use. This takes a little more coordination, as lighting must be attached to the furniture and wiring concealed, so I don’t get to do it that often. If you are looking to add a little extra something to the safety zone, this can be fantastic.

There are, of course, many other lighting solutions you can employ in a dining room to help people enjoy their time together. Lighting design is endlessly fascinating, because each home and each resident is different. Built-ins, for example, are another common feature of dining rooms that we did not cover here but that make excellent locations for embedded lighting. I’ll share a few of these edge cases in a subsequent post where we Get Creative. Up next, however, I’m going to work on a post to help you Find the Fixtures.

The Simple Gift of Light #9

Comfort. Work. Safety. Three of our lighting zones have names that invoke ideas that most of us want: few would say “no comfort, please.” The Glare Zone, however, has a much different ring to it. Perhaps every human eye should come with a READ ME FIRST! warning, every home that has overhead big lights a sign that says, “According to the State of California, overhead lighting has been shown to….”

If light can help us wake gently, move with energy, relax easily, and rest deeply, then light can probably hurt us, too. I suspect you know this already: driving westward into the setting sun can hurt, facing bright headlights can temporarily blind the nighttime dog walker. Outside the home there is often little we can do to mitigate the effects, like averting our eyes from the sudden brightness. We cannot predict when a car will approach in the oncoming lane, nor can we reach into the other car and dim their headlights.

Inside the home is different.

We have much more control over light in our homes, our own personal environments, and the choices we make can impact our enjoyment of life on a daily and nightly basis. While I prefer to focus on the positive aspects of light, there is one zone that keeps my focus on the negative effects of bad lighting. We can wake with a jolt, strain our eyes while working, try to relax under harsh lighting, and struggle to sleep after drinking too much light at night. Most of the light that hurts us comes from above, and above our eyes is a unique are of vision highly sensitive to light. 

The Glare Zone can be a scary place, but it can also be a beautiful place.

I made up the terms Comfort Zone, Safety Zone, Work Zone, and Glare Zone in an attempt to take a lot of scientific and technical information and make it understandable, and I did not go through this exercise just to make others happy. I, too, need constant reminders of what light goes where, of what light can do, and of what light to avoid, and the simple Zones keep me on track. I can look at a room and simply ask myself, “is there likely to be harsh light in the Glare Zone?” and the answers become easy and actionable.

These made-up terms, however, are not just my opinion, but rather a combination of science, biology, sociology, and technology boiled into something useful. The Glare Zone is real, but in textbooks it is called “peripheral vision.”

The retina in our eye, the layer of light-sensing cells along the back wall of our eyeball, is hit with focused light that travels through our cornea (lens) and pupil (opening). There are millions of rod cells and cone cells in each retina, each with a purpose. Cone cells, of which there are roughly six million in each eye, are the cells we use to discern color and roughly correspond to red, green, and blue receptors. They are concentrated in our near field of vision and, at the center (technically the fovea, shown above as the white circle labeled “focused vision”) cones are packed so tightly to help us see clearly that there are no rods at all.

Rods, represented by the gray and white rectangles, are colorblind but are far more sensitive to light. They far outnumber the color-sensing cone cells: a single human eye contains around one hundred million rod cells or more than ten times the cone cells.

Think about that for a moment. All day long we see things in color. Our computer screens, the sky, the siding on the house across the street, the color of our walls, the food on our plates. If the important stuff is all seen in color, why do we have so many rod cells that see in black and white?

Rod cells become critically important at night, when historically humans had very little light available. When we walk through a forest at midnight, we see little to no color but rather black and gray shapes. Inside our homes, however, we may only experience this level of darkness deep in the night when all the lights in the home are off. 

Rod cells, concentrated as they are in our peripheral vision, help us see movement “out of the corner of our eye.” Eyes have no corners, but the highly sensitive rod cells in our peripheral vision pick up the slight change in light when something moves.

These same rod cells make us hate overhead lighting.

The Glare Zone is shown above in pale yellow and is typically the ceiling of our homes. Technically, the Glare Zone goes all around the perimeter (periphery) of our eyes, but we seldom put chandeliers, downlights, wafer lights, and other Big Lights on the walls or floor. Yes, that would be a problem, but most of the glare in our lives comes from above.

Did an adult ever tell you that it is rude to wear a hat indoors? I do not know what social rule maker set that particular convention but I do no this: with the brightness of today’s overhead lighting, we should all consider wearing hats indoors. They are designed to shield our eyes from glare, and glare is precisely what most overhead lighting creates in abundance. 

On a sunny summer day, the sun can be so intense that looking directly at it burns an image in our retina – and can do greater damage if we linger too long. We cannot dim the sun, we cannot turn it off, we cannot add a shade to it, so over time we have developed a myriad of ways to be more comfortable outdoors.

If you have ever sought the protection of a patio umbrella or an awning, you might consider putting an umbrella over your dining table to block out the chandelier.

If you have ever worn sunglasses, you can get the same results inside by adding dimmers to all your lighting.

If you have tinted windows, or curtains, blinds, or shades, you know that too much light can be uncomfortable.

Sadly, inside our homes, we hang up our hats, take off our sunglasses, and leave the other big-light-blocking solutions outside. That leaves us subconsciously suffering from glare every night.

We have messed up our Glare Zone so badly that the one eye-saving technique we have, soft fabric or frosted glass shades, went out of “style” and was replaced by clear glass shades. Shade means “less light,” and clear glass technically shades nothing. This might have been okay when our light sources were candles and oil lamps, but today’s electric lighting is exponentially brighter and our eyes are overwhelmed with glare.

Clear glass does not shade anything. A coat made of net will not protect you from rain or wind, even if it is all the rage on the Paris runway. Light fixtures, especially decorative fixtures like chandeliers and wall sconces, are subject to the fickle nature of fashion. Don’t be fooled.

So what should we do to protect our eyes from harsh light in the Glare Zone? Avoid Big Lights, unshaded lights, and recessed downlights that point at your faces. Instead, consider lighting the Comfort Zone, Work Zone, and Safety Zones with specific, shielded lighting. The best light for the Glare Zone is no light.

Getting our Glare Zone right, protecting the rods in our retina from harsh lighting, often means using techniques that did not exist one hundred years ago when many lighting fashions were set. In other words, if you want a Glare Zone that does not hurt, you will need to consider “modern” lighting techniques.

In my own work as a lighting consultant, I regularly hear from clients who think some of my proposed solutions are too modern. “Can’t we just have a chandelier? I don’t think those other kinds of light are appropriate for the style of our house.”

Perhaps indirect cove lighting was not around when your style of house was invented. But likely neither were washing machines, WiFi, garage door openers, or indoor plumbing.

If you make exceptions for countless modern conveniences that make your life more comfortable, more enjoyable, more livable, why resist the one modern convenience that can make every single moment better?

Protect your Glare Zone. Your eyes will thank you.

Giving the Simple Gift of Light #10

As I sit down to write about dining room lighting fixture placement, it occurs to me that most people would consider an entire post on this subject a bit excessive. What is there to write about? Just hang a chandelier of some kind over the table, right?

This blog (and my career) exists for one primary reason: there is a better way. Yes, a chandelier over the table can be an important part of the solution, perhaps even the most important part. But our expanding understanding of human health and happiness begs the question: can our dining rooms be more comfortable? More relaxing? Inviting? Functional? Beautiful? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

As you may already know from reading posts in the Simple Gift of Light series, light can help us wake gently, move with energy, think brilliantly, relax easily, and rest deeply, but only when we have the right light in the right place at the right time.

Let’s get our dining room lights in the right places, yes?

Staring at a blank plan can be intimidating, but for me the first step is always an easy one: I mark the centerlines that will guide later placement. In a dining room, a simple “x” through the room, from corner to corner, will easily and accurately locate the center of a rectangular room. There are, of course, exceptions, but in most cases, this is where the dining room table will be and where any lighting for the table should orient.

Next, I’ll make a circuit around the room’s perimeters and look at the walls. I look for wall segments – the uninterrupted walls between windows, doors, and built-ins – that are approximately 3’ or larger and thus potential places for hanging art and photography. In this room the wall at the top of the picture and the two segments to the left and right of the windows make sense as focal points.

The long wall on the right side of the room presents the first decision that requires critical thinking. I could mark the centerline of the wall segment, but the drawing shows a buffet or sideboard centered on the main table. This puts the sideboard in the center of the room but not in the center of the wall. If furniture placement was unknown, I would lean towards marking the center of the wall. However, with the piece known and likely to align with the dining table, I marked the centerline of the furniture and room, not the centerline of the wall.

COMFORT ZONE WINNERS

I often start picking places for light fixtures in the Comfort Zone, the sweet spot of human vision out in front of us where art, windows, and the faces of loved ones across the dining room table will be. Light in the Comfort Zone should be softly diffused through shades or softly reflected off surfaces like walls, so it simulates the softness of a blue sky and maximizes our comfort. Get this Zone right and the rest of the room will typically fall into place easily.

In first place I have a tie: the dining room chandelier/pendant and recessed adjustable lights above the two sideboards. The chandelier is as close to a no-brainer as they come in lighting: we expect one to be right above the table. This is of course historically inspired but, when the fixture is chosen well, can also emit soft gentle light onto the faces of everyone seated at the table, push light downwards to the table itself, and even add a soft glow to the ceiling. I’ll get into fixture specifics later in a Pick the Products post, but for now I’ll make sure to locate a chandelier or pendant right over the table.

We also want soft light in the Comfort Zone around us in what I sometimes call a Lighting Hug, a gentle embrace of light that helps us feel good. In this dining room, recessed adjustable downlights that “aim” at the walls above the sideboards will illuminate the likely artwork before bouncing softly into the room. I waffled a bit when choosing these recessed lights over the table lamps on the sideboard but ultimately prioritized the recessed lights because you can always add lamps later but tearing into the ceiling is something most of us want to avoid. So, if you are planning your lighting, make sure you pick the right places for fixtures that will be difficult to relocate later.

You may note that I have two recessed adjustable downlights above one sideboard and three above another. There are a couple of ways to make this decision. First, you can develop spacing rules-of-thumb. In this case, a spacing of about 24”-30” means the lights will overlap each other a bit leading to nice, even illumination of the artwork. Secondly, if you know the exact art piece, you can do a little math and geometry to determine the best lighting configuration. For the sideboard on the right, where the largest piece of art in the room is likely to live, I assumed a need to cover more of the wall and went with three fixtures. Oh…hold up on that for a sec….

There is one more thing to notice with the recessed adjustable fixtures as I have them placed in the drawing above: they are in the wrong place in relation to the dashed line that indicates a soffit or tray ceiling. The result will be quite atrocious flashes of light on the soffit, ugly shadows on the walls and possibly artwork, and a missed opportunity. To solve this issue, we need to take a quick dive into the geometry.

This gets a little technical, but it can be helpful to understand the meaning of beam angle and field angle, both technical measurements of the beam of light emitted from a light fixture. In simple terms, as shown in the diagram on the right above, the beam angle is the area of the beam that goes from the brightest output to 50% of said bright spot. The beamangle is what is typically given by manufacturers, so you might see a recessed light that says something like “36° Beam Angle.” As you can see in the diagram, however, beam angle is just the beginning.

Light will typically fade gently from 50% to 5% beyond the beam angle, and that additional area is called the fieldangle. It is important to know the field angle when considering soffits, because it will make a bad problem much worse (when overlapping fixtures to light art or other items, however, overlapping the field angle can be quite helpful). 

The diagram on the left shows the situation I just created in section view, with a downlight on the upper ceiling and art hanging on the wall below the soffit created by a tray ceiling. When properly aimed at the art, with the hotspot somewhere around eye height, note how both the beam and the field angle – and the remaining bit of light beyond the field angle – smack into the face of the soffit. Because the soffit face is so close to the light, it will be extremely brightly illuminated by an ugly flash of light, distracting at best.

This placement will also cast an ugly shadow below the soffit, which can negatively impact the art but will look bad even without the art. 

There are a couple of ways to fix this issue, two of which I share in the diagram above. 

The best solution from a lighting point of view is to expand the size of the soffit until it is sufficient to contain the recessed adjustable downlight in the precise location needed. When I explain the situation to the architect or builder, accommodation is usually made but not always. The room may have other critical considerations that make expanding the soffit difficult or impossible, so it pays to have other options.

The simplest workaround is to abandon the recessed lights completely and utilize a wall-mounted picture/art light. These can be found in very modern form and in classic styles, working with about any décor, but because they are highly visible, they typically need to be coordinated with the interior designer and homeowner for aesthetic reasons.

For our sample project, I am imagining that we were able to collaborate with the architect and expand the soffit, shown above by the green dashed line, to solve our issue, at least in the dining room.

What about the Glare Zone, Work Zone, and Safety Zone? Stay tuned; a second post is already under way.

Read more of the Giving the Simple Gift of Light practical series HERE.

2026 is going to be an epic year. The first of several major announcements is coming soon. Stay tuned….

Giving the Simple Gift of Light #9

You might think that crafting lighting designs for hundreds of homes would get boring after a few years. How many ways can you light a kitchen before it all starts to blend together?

As it turns out, thankfully, the answer is “to infinity, and beyond!”

Creativity is tough to define, but in lighting design I think creative solutions are simple to produce: define a problem, then find a solution using the various parts and pieces of our trade. Reframing the question, or defining the problem, is a critical first step. If soft light bouncing off the ceiling is what you want in the Comfort Zone, you could do a ceiling cove. No cove? No problem. What else could you use?

To wrap up the Living Room Series, let’s stroll through the photo album and see what our team has done to keep each home creatively unique.

First, it makes sense to look at a more-or-less “ideal” living room. There are a lot of solutions in this single rendering – that was the point – but they all add together to make a beautiful, functional, and comfortable space.

1. The Comfort Zone is gently illuminated with soft-shaded floor lamps, art lighting, wall sconces, windowsill uplights, shelf lighting, and grazing on the fireplace. Most of the lighting in this zone reflects off something: beams, walls, art, stone, ceilings. That makes it very comfortable, without being dark.
2. The Work Zone has what it needs from the floor lamps, as is evidenced by the strong glow on each chair.
3. The Glare Zone has no visible bright recessed downlights and the chandelier is dimmed to just a soft glow. Light is reflected off the ceiling, but nothing points directly at the room’s occupied spaces.
4. The Safety Zone has a few recessed step/path lights and light in the built-in toe kicks. A little light under the coffee table would also be awesome, but wiring it gets tricky without drilling through the beautiful floor, so we left it out.

Now let’s get creative.

Tuck linear LED strips in behind a television and a soft glow slips out around the set, softening the contrast between the television and the typically darker walls. Here, the light is tucked into purpose-built pockets in the wall, keeping the television free of lighting gear. TV halos like this can be controversial, with both advocates and detractors vociferously arguing their points, but it really just comes down to whether a homeowner likes the look or not. Halos might ease eyestrain and look cool, but a little soft indirect light in a space can be valuable in just about any form.

This photograph and the previous both make use of saturated color, another solution that regularly scares our clients. There are some who don’t mind the Las Vegas vibe of dancing rainbows of color, but most of us do not feel a need for party lights. We do like sunsets and magic hour, however, and bringing some of that natural color- like blue skies or amber sunsets- can help us relax and feel comfortable. Dimming is great; adding a little nighttime color takes it one step further.

Lighting can get expensive quickly, but a little thrift-store searching or creative upcycling can have a positive impact for just a few dollars. In this simple living room, two accent lamps add sparkle and glow to the Comfort Zone: one on the fireplace mantel and another to the left of the brown chair in the middle of the photo. Both were originally ceiling lighting fixtures that were being thrown out of a family member’s house; adding a cord and plug gave them new life.

A sure-fire way to spark creativity while making trade partners happy: light the important stuff in the room. Here, the beautiful stone work has light grazing downwards from a shielding wooden valance. The result is a soft glow that calls our attention to the rough stone. The homeowners invested real money in the stone, why not highlight it?

Shown in the rendering at the beginning of this post, linear LED strips along windowsills of clerestory windows is a subtle way to introduce indirect light into a space. In this living room, there is a soft glow at the base of each window and a very soft, diffuse glow on the ceiling as a result. Both chase away the shadows that would otherwise make the upper half of this room feel dark.

Sometimes a cove light is not possible and window coverings might interfere with the previous solution. In this project, our designers added wall sconces above the patio doors to push light down to the floor (while staying out of the Glare Zone) and to push light upwards into the Comfort Zone.

Light in this space is very muted by the daylight flooding in, but you can just make out a linear glow above and to the right of the fireplace where the fluted material steps back to dark wooden panels. This approach helps the interior design treatment look its best while introducing indirect light into the space.

Adding a tiny shelf to the bottom of ceiling beams creates an opportunity for linear highlighting. Without the strips, the character of the wood would be almost certainly lost. How do I know? Look at the door frame in the middle of the photo and compare to the beams. We see a lot more detail overhead than we do in the doorway, despite the same wood being used.

This modern condominium has an open floor plan with a dining area on the left and living area on the right. The lines of light in the ceiling are a bit like area rugs in defining each separate area. Be careful not to rely on these for significant illumination; super bright lines of light can introduce intense glare. Dimmed, however, they make a very nice glow.

I like to mount wall sconces to wide window mullions as shown in this photo, but these days I would locate them at the cross members and use fixtures that go up and down (see the last image). Wood reflects light beautifully and just plain looks better with a little warm light. This approach can also reduce the contrast between the brightness of the window and the darker walls and trim, making it easier on our eyes.

Coffered ceilings can be quite stunning when illuminated. This is costly and time-consuming to install, but nothing calls attention to detail like light. These coffers will also fill the entire room with soft, glare-free light, reducing the reliance on the recessed downlights and increasing comfort.

There is no end to opportunities, and we packed a good number of them into this rendering. Notice the up/down sconces on the wooden columns, the light below the coffee table, step/path lights, highlights in the firewood storage, and linear along the bottom of the long wooden beam that holds up the balcony. How many different lighting “layers” can you count in this photo? I count 15.

Is this list exhaustive? Absolutely not. I could go on for hours.

And is there a right and wrong creative solution to choose? Yes…and no. Each room is unique, each client is unique, and that means every solution can be unique.

That’s what makes our job fun!

Read more of the Giving the Simple Gift of Light, a practical how-to series, HERE.

Would you rather invest in expensive electrical equipment or your quality of life?

Recently one of our custom integration partners asked me why homeowners should choose digitally controlled lighting over panelized dimming systems. As a lighting professional, the choice is so clear to me that it can be difficult to imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to go digital, other than potential cost. 

But I got to work thinking up ways to convince homeowners that digital isn’t just the better option, it’s the only not-dumb option. 

Sometimes, the difference between a smart choice and a dumb choice is easy. You have a beautiful and expensive chandelier. Hang it above the dining room table? Smart. Hang it in the garage, where it will get filthy, where you will bang your head on it every time you grab a broom? Dumb. In a way, panelized dimming is like putting your most expensive lighting in the garage. I’ll explain in a minute.

Closets and mechanical rooms (or garages) become a central part of the discussion when considering digital lighting versus analog panelized dimming. So let’s look at the humble closet, the out-of-the-way storage cubicle where mechanical equipment lives.

It would be pretty dumb to buy beautiful, functional, comfortable living room furniture and stuff it all in the closet, leaving the room empty. You spent the money to sit comfortably, to relax, but you then pushed all the necessary gear into the closet.

Would it not be smarter to pull the furniture out into the living room, where it serves a daily benefit of increased comfort?

Panelized dimming systems – which I am brazenly calling the “dumb” choice in this post – are in truth pretty nifty. Instead of rows of dimmers and switches on your kitchen wall, each load, or group, of lights is connected back to a dimming panel in a closet or utility room. These dimmers can then be remotely controlled by keypads and even phones and touchscreens.

The end result is the ability to create preset scenes or looks, with all the lights dimmed perfectly, and recall those scenes with the simple press of a button on a beautiful keypad. So why is this possibly a waste of money?

Dimming panels cost a decent deal of money. Think of it as buying some really nice equipment and hiding all of it in your closet. You get some benefit, of course, but there is an awful lot of your money humming away unseen.

Digital systems also allow you to control each group of lights remotely and require some equipment in the closet. But here’s the catch: a fully digital system will require substantially less gear in the closet. This saves space, which can be valuable, but also moves your money out of the closet and into the room.

Imagine you have stacks and stacks of cash laying around that you want to use on your new home. You could stack those bills up between the studs and then cover them with sheetrock. Your money would be gone, but any benefit is hidden inside the walls.

Instead, use that money to make your space more beautiful, more comfortable. Buy trim and millwork. Add finishes and better flooring. Buy artwork and furniture. Perhaps you used the same amount of money, but your home is more beautiful, functional, and comfortable.

How is that similar to the analog/digital debate? If it were simply a question of putting dollars into dimming cabinets or into fixtures, but the room looked and felt just the same, there might not be a huge advantage to digital systems. Sure, digital systems require less wiring (saving copper, material costs, and labor) and save closet space, but the end result is that the room could look and feel exactly the same. Why bother?

Digital lighting becomes the smart choice when you add one more key benefit to the equation: tunable light fixtures. “Tuning” light is the ability to shift the color temperature of the light source from warm, amber white through neutral white all the way to cool, crisp, blue white. Check out any of my posts on light and health, circadian rhythm, or tunable technology and you will discover a long list of benefits. Homes look and feel better; they also support our natural biorhythms better. Tunable light essentially makes the light inside our homes more like the light outside, more like the gold standard of natural light.

In my opinion, digital lighting makes the most sense when the dollars saved are invested in better, tunable light fixtures. Your investment moves out of the walls, out of the closets, and into the rooms you inhabit on a daily basis. You get the same benefits as the analog panelized dimming systems, but you also gain the ability to better tailor your light throughout the day.

I experimented with tunable lighting and digital control in my bedroom a few years ago. I have a keypad on the wall as you enter, one that allows me to turn the lights on and off and shift the color temperature from sunrise warm to midday sun. I have four different kinds of tunable fixtures in the room, all controlled by the single keypad.

The end result is light that can be crisp and bright and energizing during the day and soft, warm, and relaxing at night. And how much money did I shove into the closet for dimming panels? Zero dollars. All of the investment went to improving my quality of life.

That makes digital lighting a pretty smart choice, yes?

The Simple Gift of Light #8

I am looking out my window as I write, and the neighborhood is filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of autumn. It is the time of year when, in Wisconsin where I currently live, we pull out our puffy jackets, fleece zip-ups, stocking caps, and gloves. We light fires inside our homes and outside in our fire pits. We boil water for tea and cocoa and add more candles to the dinner table. We use these items as tools to bring comfort through the cold breezes and shortening days.

Comfort is deeply satisfying, and, in some ways, we spend a large amount of our time, energy, and money chasing it, though each in our own ways. I spend on fleece-lined pants in the winter and comfortable sandals in the summer. I air-condition my house when it gets too hot and heat it when it gets too cold. For the first time in my life, I have heated seats in my car, and I confess I am already in love with the warmth radiating into my body. We just changed our bedsheets to flannel last night; soon it will be cold enough for our down comforter.

We stop at the coffee shop for a warm drink as the temperatures fall or an iced coffee in the summer. We double the padding underneath our carpeting for a soft touch. We buy new shoes that fit just right. We seek out comfortable furniture for our living rooms. We hunt for the perfect pillow for sleeping. 

We want to be comfortable, and in a world that can often seem hostile, comfort at home can be a critical element of rest and rejuvenation. Does light play a role? Can you feel more comfortable at home just by changing your lighting?

In the previous post I outlined four zones of lighting based on human vision: the Glare, Comfort, Work, and Safety Zones. We live our best lives when our lighting is chosen specifically for each zone, carefully balancing our practical, emotional, and biological needs. I chose to start with the Comfort Zone because this is our “sweet spot” of vision and can similarly be the sweet spot of lighting when done well.

Take a moment to understand your Comfort Zone. Sit (or stand) in a comfortable position, with your body relaxed (but not drooping or asleep). Your head will likely direct your vision straight ahead. What do you see? If you turn your head slightly to your left, without stretching uncomfortably, what do you see? To the right? Our necks are flexible enough to allow us to look in all directions, but our comfort decreases the further we turn from straight on. Looking up at the ceiling will not be comfortable for long. Looking over our shoulder is momentarily at best.

Where we can see with just a little movement of our neck is our sweet spot of vision because that is the area we will see the most, and that same logic leads to the Comfort Zone of lighting.

I mentioned earlier that is a fall day here in Wisconsin. In my sweet spot of vision, I see trees, the houses across the street and next door, art on my walls, and my computer monitor. If I turn around I see the textured wall behind me. When I sit down for dinner I will see the face of my loved one across the table. 

Everything in the Comfort Zone inside my house can be illuminated in essentially two ways: one which brings comfort and another that brings discomfort. Knowing the difference is at the root of lighting design.

“You need layers of light.” I hear this frequently from trade professionals and that puts the speaker a step ahead of most of the world. Simply possessing layers of light, however, is like having the ingredients for a chocolate cake but not knowing the specifics: what quantities of ingredients are needed, how they should be combined, how long and at what temperature it should be baked, and so on. Yes, you do need layers of light if you want to be comfortable, but you need to follow a recipe. Without a recipe, you might have something vaguely resembling a chocolate cake, but it probably will not taste too great.

Take a look at the images above. On the left, we have someone seated on the “layers of light” version of a chair. It has all the “layers of comfort” necessary for a good chair: wood, padding, fabric. But when used without a plan, the seating arrangement is ludicrous at best and injurious at worst. 

On the right we have the same ingredients, the same materials, the same layers, but the chair is much more comfortable. Light mirrors the seating arrangement in each image: bright, direct downlighting on the left brings discomfort while purposeful, reflected light on the right delivers comfort.

I’ve made the point that you need a recipe for good chocolate cake and a well-constructed chair for comfortable seating. Now let’s build a recipe for a well-constructed lighting solution.

Our Comfort Zone is best when illuminated with comprehensive, adequate, softly reflected light, but this is rarely the case in both new homes and every era of existing houses. If I came over to your house every night, followed you around as you ate dinner, relaxed, and prepared for dinner, and made sure to keep a very bright flashlight pointed at your face, I doubt I would last a single evening before you called the authorities to have me evicted.

Sadly, we’ve been trained to accept almost exactly that: bright overhead lighting directed at our heads instead of soft light reflected in our Comfort Zone. If your home is filled with overhead lights, decorative fixtures with bare bulbs (or bulbs inside clear glass shades), and tiny-but-bright LED fixtures, the chances are high that your Comfort Zone is, well, uncomfortable. An easy way to tell is to hold your hand above your eyes like you would shade them outdoors. If it feels better with your hand above your eyes inside, there is a better way.

If you have a nice bright flashlight, try this out to see the power of reflected light: in a completely dark room, point the flashlight at the wall in front of you. While holding the flashlight steady, look around the room. What can you see? Is there light bouncing gently into the room? Now turn the flashlight off. Are you surprised by how many photos were reflected into the room?

Our Comfort Zone is built for natural light and specifically for the soft, diffuse light that comes from a beautiful blue sky and from sunlight reflected off trees, mountains, and other natural features. Indoors, our eyes are still looking for our horizon and sky to be softly, gently illuminated. Our walls and ceilings, especially what we see in our Comfort Zone, need to reflect light into the space to replace the missing sky and landscape.

Lamps with soft fabric shades and architectural lighting fixtures that bounce light off cabinets, artwork, and walls will re-introduce some of the soft light our bodies crave. We seek comfort in our Comfort Zone, and light can deliver when filtered, diffused, and reflected. Let’s look at some examples from budget-friendly to high-end luxury.

This is a picture from the modest living room of the house we owned awhile back. The Comfort Zone is filled with photographs, a triptych of images above the fireplace and the mantel itself, a bookshelf, curtains, and more. The only existing light in the room came from ceiling fan with classic light kit, essentially four light bulbs pointed right at your face. There is literally no comfortable seat in the room without blinding overhead light that leaves the Comfort Zone dim and stark.

This photograph was taken only a few seconds later and you can see an enormous difference. Even without analyzing the lighting, you probably think this living room is far more comfortable than the first. Why, when the furniture, carpet, and wall hangings are exactly the same?

This image has six lamps, none of which required electrical work or any lighting in the ceiling whatsoever. Four of the lamps feature soft fabric shades that diffuse the light and direct the light downwards and upwards. Notice how we can look directly at each light source without discomfort? Scroll back up to the first photograph. Can you look at the ceiling fan light as comfortably?

The brown chair on the left side, facing us, has a floor lamp to the left. We will talk about the Work Zone more later, but you can instantly see how reading a book in this chair would be supported by the light coming out of the bottom of the shade. Note also how some of the light hits the wall and ceiling, reflecting gently back into the room. The combination of soft light from the shade and light reflected off the wall and ceiling is what makes the Comfort Zone work.

Pick just about any feature of the room – the seating, the carpet, the fireplace, the art – and compare between the two photographs. When we properly illuminate our Comfort Zone with soft light, the rest of the room looks better, too. If we can make such a big difference just by plugging in a few lamps, what could we do with a stunning home and ample budget?

The bigger the house, the worse the lighting, or so it seems sometimes. Our most common reaction to larger rooms or taller ceilings generally ends up introducing even more glare-producing wafer lights or overhead decorative fixtures. The space may feature incredible interior design and architectural features, but the Comfort Zone is filled with darkness and shadows or the equally uncomfortable bright lighting. In a tall space like this one, so much of the light is concentrated overhead that the seating area almost always feels dark, secondary, less important. It’s like the couch should be lifted up near the ceiling if you want good light.

Ah, doesn’t that feel better? Again, we changed none of the architectural features, furnishings, or finishes. It is the exact same room, just under different lighting conditions. When I flip between the two, I see the focus of light move from high over our heads to down into the seating area. I notice soft light in the Comfort Zone from lamps, wall sconces near the windows, accent lighting inside the wood storage, and light on the sculpture near the back. There is even a concealed linear light fixture running the entire length of the beam holding up the second-floor balcony.

I made up the term “Comfort Zone,” but I didn’t make up the way our eyes perceive light. No matter what terminology you use, filling a space with soft, gently diffused, or reflected light makes us feel more comfortable than bright overhead lights. If you want to sell diesel fuel or paper towels, bright overhead lighting might be the right move. If you want to relax, try something else. 

You can see- and feel- the difference.

Giving the Simple Gift of Light #8

“THE CLAW CHOOSES WHO WILL GO AND WHO WILL STAY” – Alien #17, Toy Story

Sometimes choosing light fixtures can seem like an arcade game, and that is not a good thing. You take a good look at the products but cannot quiet the nagging suspicion that there is a better product deeper in the pile…if you could just uncover it.

Then, eyes on a product, you start the specification process. This one is going to be it, the one light fixture that solves all your problems. But the game is rigged – the first couple of tries are all but guaranteed to fail. Your first fixture choice didn’t turn out that well, so you have to try again.

If you stay at it long enough, if you pump in enough quarters, if you persist, you might just win the perfect spec. By then, of course, the fun is gone.

I routinely hear “I need more help with specifying fixtures” from our new hires and emerging designers. Light fixtures can make or break a design and there are literally thousands of products in millions of combinations.

Scared off yet? Let’s see if we can take this ridiculously complicated process and simplify it until it becomes useable.

I often start the process by jotting down a quick list of fixtures needed. When I am designing someone’s home, I might do this room-by-room, after the entire plan is roughed in, or build it slowly as I move through the home. Once I have a list, I start the hunt for product. 

Before we dig in, I have two disclaimers to make. First, after thirty years of lighting design, I have a head full of products and this process is usually pretty quick. In other words, don’t be intimidated if this is your first try: it will get easier in time. Secondly, I am keeping it rather generic in this series. Why? Because avoiding specific brands and product numbers allows this advice to last longer. Sure, I could give you an ordering code for a particular warm-dim high-output linear LED “tape,” channel, lens, and driver…but by the time you read this, there will likely be a better product on the market.

Okay, let’s dig in and see if we can make this a little less painful.

LINEAR LED

Linear LED strips, often called tape lighting, comes in a staggering variety of sizes, outputs, colors, and more. I use it almost everywhere, too. In our living room design, we placed linear LED lighting in shelving, coves, on clerestory windows, underneath the hearth, in toe kicks, and even under the sofa.

LINEAR LED: BASIC

Tape light is available just about anywhere and the internet is full of low-cost product. Dimmable LEDs, which I prefer to call “cold dimming,” fade in intensity and end up looking gray to our eyes, so I put them at the bottom of the list. Large pitch, or spacing between diodes, leads to spotting on lenses and nearby surfaces like walls and ceilings. Lower-cost products also discolor and fail faster, but in a pinch these can be a decent upgrade from nothing.

LINEAR LED: IMPROVED

COB, or chip-on-board, strips are increasingly popular and many offer short cut lengths that allow for increased precision. The continuous strip of phosphor covering the tightly-spaced, tiny LED chips all but eliminates dotting and leads to smooth lighting in even the tightest of applications. I categorize them as “Improved” when in fixed color temperature, but there are an increasing number of color-changing, tunable, and even warm-dimming COB strips available. I suspect most linear will be COB in the next couple of years.

LINEAR LED: PERFORMANCE

Tight chip spacing (pitch) reduces unwanted hotspots, but the addition of warm-dimming technology is a key upgrade in the performance category. There is a risk that the warmer (more amber) look of the dimmed strips will not appeal to everyone (or react well with all paint colors), but it can be far more comfortable and attractive than cold-dimming products. I see a lot of warm-dim from 3000°Kelvin to 1800°K; that works for me though it does not need to go much lower than 2200°K for me to be happy.

LINEAR LED: LUXURY

The future of lighting is “daylight tunable,” or technology that shifts from daylight-cool light (anywhere from 4000°K to 6000°K) down to sunset-warm light (between 1800°K and 2200°K). These fall into my luxury category because the strips cost a little more, but the bigger price factor is the requirement of intelligent control systems to manage the shift. You can buy smart strips like Hue and LIFX and Cync for DIY projects; pro-grade products typically required a skilled technician and programmer.

LINEAR GRAZER

Most linear strips have a wide beam dispersion in the neighborhood of 120°, meaning the light spreads out like a garden sprinkler, going everywhere. This is great in tight spaces like toe kicks, ceiling coves, and even under cabinets. For taller applications like our living room fireplace, however, specialized linear LED products gather up the light and “push” it in a narrower distribution, allowing the light to travel further. When placed close to a textured surface like stone, this effect is called “grazing” and there are a number of linear strategies to match.

LINEAR GRAZER: BASIC

Most standard linear LED “tapes” can be placed inside an aluminum channel and capped with a grazing lens. The lens focuses the light into a narrower beam of light, pushing the light further. This is a decent approach for short ceiling spaces or short grazing applications, but double-height fireplaces and features will be better off with a grazing-specific fixture.

LINEAR GRAZER: IMPROVED

There are some great linear grazing products that look like large tape light and even share the characteristic of flexibility with their lower-cost cousins. Instead of bare LED chips, however, linear grazing products have individual lenses over each chip, carefully collating and focusing the light. This tends to be more efficient than the basic solutions, thus producing a more dramatic effect. Color technologies are somewhat limited in this category.

LINEAR GRAZER: PERFORMANCE

I am delighted by the innovation in the grazer category, especially by the increased flexibility of some performance products. These are kind of like high-performance holiday string lights, a series of individual LED lights connected by flexible cord. This allows the grazer to be bent in multiple directions, turn corners, and wrap around columns with ease. Bonus points for adding a color technology like warm-dimming, if you can find it.

LINEAR GRAZER: LUXURY

Two key differences push grazing into the top category: color technology and glare control. Bumping up to tunable color changing, from cool white to warm white, is a key element of the best lighting solutions for a variety of reasons from aesthetics to circadian rhythm. Glare control, usually in the form of louvers, shields individual “cells” from view, making for a much more comfortable environment.

RA DOWNLIGHTS: BASIC

Recessed Adjustable Downlights can be very useful tools throughout the house, but a surprising number of homes now feature glare-inducing wafer (or disk, pancake, panel) lights that do a terrible job pushing light to the countertops. Avoid these if you can- they do not even qualify as recessed, adjustable, or downlight.

RA DOWNLIGHTS: IMPROVED

Lights that pivot are often categorized as gimbal-style and can offer a good step up in functionality. Try to avoid those that are just wafer lights that pivot – you want a fixture with a reflector or multi-faceted lens to push light. If the face of the light source just looks like a frosted disk, keep looking.

RA DOWNLIGHTS: PERFORMANCE

A true performance recessed adjustable downlight will allow for aiming (tilting) of the light source up inside the ceiling where the mechanisms are hidden. This allows the light source to be further above the ceiling and the general rule is that the higher the recess, the lower the glare. I personally like those with frosted silver reflectors, but mirror-like silver reflectors will reduce glare even further. Black reflectors are better still but can draw attention in light ceilings when turned off. Expect to pay several hundred dollars for a good downlight in this category.

RA DOWNLIGHTS: LUXURY

Tunable recessed adjustable downlights usually cost more (and cost more to control), so I’m categorizing them as luxury. If we can get the market to shift, these could be made more affordably and that would make me very, very happy. Daylight Tunable fixtures that range from a warm 1800°Kelvin (K) to a crisp cool 4000°K are my current favorite fixture. Luxurious fixtures can also be smaller and have premium construction and finishes. I think a 2-3” diameter fixture with 1000 lumens and a 40° beam will satisfy most situations.

RECESSED MULTIPLES

I turn to recessed multiple downlights, or “multiples,” in a number of applications from lighting a hallway to providing pillow lights and art lights in bedrooms. In the Living Room, I find multiples handy for reducing ceiling clutter while allowing me to pack in more light sources to compensate for tall ceilings. Like all lighting products, you can spend $100 or $1000 on each fixture.

RECESSED MULTIPLES: BASIC

Basic multiples allow for adjustability, often using gimbal-style rotation mechanisms, and are available in fixed color temperatures for “cold dimming.” These may have higher glare than some of their cousins.

RECESSED MULTIPLES: IMPROVED

Some models have small track-style “heads” inside a box that allow for greater flexibility. Some can even be pulled down below the ceiling plane, allowing for extreme aiming, though at the cost of a tidy ceiling. With multiples, aiming flexibility is key, so this makes a worthwhile trade in most cases.

RECESSED MULTIPLES: PERFORMANCE

Performance multiples should have good adjustability but also color technology upgrades like warm-dimming that softly warms like a setting sun when dimmed.

RECESSED MULTIPLES: LUXURY

Tunable once again makes the top tier of multiples perform better than any of their relatives. Keep an eye out for clever, glare-reducing, in-the-ceiling aiming mechanisms. The same rule for downlights is true here: the deeper the source, the lower the glare.

PATH/STEP LIGHTS: BASIC

Theater-style path lights, also called step lights, were developed to allow patrons to safely navigate ramps and steps in darkened theaters. In homes, the same style of fixture provides reassuring pools of light along key pathways through the home. Low-cost interior path lights often have slanted louvers to direct light downwards while shielding your eyes from glare. Almost all path/step lights will emit fixed white light, so consider 2700°K warm white or even warmer if available.

PATH/STEP LIGHTS: IMPROVED

There are some lovely step lights for under $100USD that feature a modern design with recessed light sources and “scoops” that allow the light out and down to the floor. This is the style I use the most because it also eliminates any significant protrusions from the wall and looks attractive all day long. There is a bit of a high brightness to the scoop, a trade-off that should be considered. 

PATH/STEP LIGHTS: PERFORMANCE

Interior path lights that completely hide the light source (and without any reflecting surfaces) will be the most comfortable at night, though they must stick out of the wall to accomplish the task well. I wish there were more products in this category that I liked, but a good number of them are so shallow and shielded that you mostly end up with light on the baseboards and not across steps and floors. Look for units that push the light source out an inch or so and spread light out widely.

PATH/STEP LIGHTS: LUXURY

There are several ways to hit the top of the line in interior path lights: get tiny, choose premium finishes, or make them disappear. Tiny lights, as small as a nickel, all but disappear but are also towards the top end of costs. Premium finishes are available in some higher-grade path lights and a nice brass or polished steel will feel luxurious. And my favorite luxury move? There are path lights that can be mudded into the wall and painted to match, leaving only a small groove visible that emits light. 

PICTURE LIGHTS

Picture lights or art lights exist at the crossroads of architectural performance lighting and decorative lighting. They have to look attractive even when not in use, which often pushes aside performance considerations. This may be fine when the art is not important, but higher-performing fixtures can light the art better and add more comfortable illumination to the room.

PICTURE LIGHTS: BASIC

Dimmable LED picture lights come in a variety of styles ranging from classic ornate brass to modern streamlined matte black, but most will put light on art from a linear source of light. The downside to most is that light will be concentrated near the top of the art, leaving the bottom underlit.

PICTURE LIGHTS: IMPROVED

Arm-mounted spotlights can deliver more “punch” to artwork and often have beam-changing options that account for different sizes of art. These are decidedly modern in appearance, and costs can increase when two or more or needed for larger features.

PICTURE LIGHTS: PERFORMANCE/COLOR

I deviated from the previous categories a bit here because art lights are highly specialized and it can be very difficult to find all the features in one package. Color technology is one key consideration, as the color of light will directly and significantly impact the appearance of the art. Daylight tunable products allow us to select just the right color temperature, whether warm or cool, so we get to enjoy the art the most.

PICTURE LIGHTS: PERFORMANCE/OPTICS

There are a few products like Revelite that go a step beyond the competition by allowing multiple optical systems within a single system for precision lighting. These products allow you to aim a portion of the fixture at the top of the artwork and a separate section at the bottom, allowing individual dimming and optics for each component to get the light to be just right. If you have a large Seurat, this is the way to go.

WALL UP/DOWN SCONCES

We use a surprising quantity of these humble wall sconces on our projects for two reasons: the provide easy-to-install uplighting and downlighting and they can disappear into the architecture. They show up indoors and out on our projects and work just about anywhere you need a little extra light but the ceiling is too far away. When mounted at eye height, they can also be low-glare, an added but important bonus.

WALL UP/DOWN SCONCES: BASIC

Whether square, round, or some fancy shape, the basic up/down sconce does just what it promises: sends light upwards and downwards. Cold dimming LEDs are often more affordable but may you feeling, well, cold late at night.

WALL UP/DOWN SCONCES: IMPROVED

Glare is always a key consideration in lighting and some subtle differences in construction can improve the quality of the simple up/down sconce. Just like a recessed downlight, a small recess inside the fixture pushes the bright, glare-inducing source of light further inside the fixture, reducing glare and increasing comfort. Look for this recess and you likely have a better fixture.

WALL UP/DOWN SCONCES: PERFORMANCE

Add in warm-dimming technology for softly illuminated evenings for a performance upgrade. Higher-quality fixtures may also offer adjustability so you can push lighting more into the room. While glare can become an issue with this approach, the added flexibility can increase the positive impact of these performance sconces.

WALL UP/DOWN SCONCES: LUXURY

Tunable white light sources once again makes the upgrade to luxury products worth considering, though the technology is becoming increasingly available and affordable. Other luxury upgrades are going to fall primarily into the aesthetic category, like smaller diameter cylinders, decorative wall plates, and custom finishes.

CHANDELIERS

Well…I might get into trouble with this fixture. Chandeliers were, hundreds of years ago, the most high-tech method of illuminating large spaces. Candles and oil lamps burned in only one direction, upwards, so it became necessary to get these high off the ground where their light could spread out everywhere. 

Today, we can do much, much better, but we still have nostalgic connections to chandeliers, and they are often included as “statement pieces” in living rooms. What statement they make can be questionable but could include: “these people spent a lot of money on something big and fancy,” or “these people value appearance over function and happily spent thousands on outdated lighting while skimping on modern performance fixtures that Louis XIV would have demanded if they existed hundreds of years ago.”

Am I in trouble yet? I love a good chandelier, but never at the expense of good lighting. 

CHANDELIERS: BASIC

If a chandelier has bare bulbs or tiny narrow LED strips, it will introduce substantial glare into the room unless dimmed very low. These become strictly decorative and provide little to no usable light in a space without accompanying glare. Avoid them when you can, especially if budget is critical. Think of these like the jewelry of the home – expensive, pretty, and with no practical function.

CHANDELIERS: IMPROVED

I have had a series of inexpensive chandeliers above my dining tables that point light downwards, with frosted glass shades that soften the light and reduce glare. The key upgrades here are pushing light down where it can be used and shielding/hiding the bulbs.

CHANDELIERS: PERFORMANCE

Performance chandeliers are few and far between; there just isn’t much demand for something that looks great and delivers usable, low-glare light into a room. Sadly. If you are looking to upgrade, however, there are a few options. First, look for warm-dimming technology or purchase warm-dimming LED bulbs to soften and warm up the light. Secondly, look for fixtures that hide the light sources and spread the light over large diffusers or shades. This softens the distribution of light, all but eliminating glare.

CHANDELIERS: LUXURY

I marked these “hard to find,” which may seem odd given the relative ease of locating very beautiful and very expensive chandeliers. It is hard to find great-looking chandeliers that also deliver usable, low-glare light, however, and even more difficult to find said chandeliers in tunable white technology. You may have more luck searching in the commercial lighting category.

LAMPS

After bashing chandeliers, it is a relief to finish with lamps. I love lamps, as a general rule, and there is no better way to introduce usable, comfortable light to a space. In no space is this truer than living rooms. 

Lamps come in endless styles, but there are some key considerations you can read more about in the Pick the Places 2 post. In short, a soft fabric or glass shade that hides the bulb or light source is critical and choosing the right height can also dramatically impact comfort.

LAMPS: BASIC

Can I say much about these? It’s a lamp. Dimmable is good, but cold-dimming is far from my favorite technology.

LAMPS: IMPROVED

I give a higher rating to light fixtures that can swing closer to couches and chairs for their ability to deliver light to books, knitting, games, and anything else we want to see.

LAMPS: PERFORMANCE

Height adjustment is important to reduce glare: too low and the light does not reach your book, too high and you can see the bare bulb. Add in warm-dimming light bulbs and you have a lamp with the potential to deliver better light every night.

LAMPS: LUXURY

I have tunable white light bulbs in my bedroom and have had them in my living room in the past. While these require some kind of intelligent lighting control, adding to the cost, they allow me to set an appropriate mood for the time of day and avoid light that is too “yellow” or too “blue.” Add in adjustability and a little style and you have a luxury product worthy of inclusion in the most beautiful spaces.

Whew, these posts are killer. Am I seriously considering writing one of these for every room of the house? Sure, I can copy and paste a bit as fixtures repeat, but this is still a bit of a slog to write so I can only imagine what you just went through to read it. 

Plowing onwards….