Why Should I Hire A Residential Lighting Consultant?
When you are designing and planning a home remodel project there are many moving parts for consideration. Whether your plans are for a complete home remodel or only a kitchen, you require a team of architectural designers, contractors, plumbers, electricians, and so much more. One element that tends to get overlooked is lighting design. When you hire a residential lighting designer, you elevate your project from merely great to extraordinary. An architectural lighting design expert employs unique illumination techniques that control the flow of light in your space. Why is this element so valuable? Lighting design is more than just strategically placed lamps. It can affect the entire scope of your project, ranging from color management to space perception.
Color Management
How you utilize light in a room drastically affects the overall colors of the room. Darker walls tend to make a space feel smaller while lighter colors create an opposite effect. Here is how lighting design enhances color management. • Directional lighting may serve to compliment both dark and light by softening wall color. • Recessed lighting has a soft downward glow that illuminates the floors calling attention to the relationship between color and texture. • Ambient illumination hung in the center of the room also affects light and shadow, and consequently color.
Intentional Directional Lighting
Lighting in a room either provides general illumination or can highlight specific design elements, like a dramatic fireplace or exquisite artwork, a vase of flowers an antique piece of furniture, a bartop or a kitchen island. Track lighting is the quintessential example of positional lighting. Hung from the ceiling, you can adjust the necks and heads to draw the eye wherever you desire. Recessed lighting in floors or ceilings is also an example of directional lighting, in that they help control the flow of light and movement in a space.
Functional Design
Above all else, your lighting should serve a specific purpose, or it is a waste of electricity. Dramatic chandeliers hung in large open foyers or formal dining rooms personify functional design. They provide necessary illumination for the space while focusing attention with an artistic purpose. Another example is how wall sconces add length, size, and drama to hallways. Lastly, one more functional design is task-specific lighting for desks and kitchen work areas.
Space Enhancement
Natural light is the best way to enhance a room, and this is especially true in smaller, dark spaces. Without sufficient lighting, the room will feel cramped and gloomy. The natural light enhances colors and offers the illusion of creating space because it bounces off reflective surfaces. Therefore, during your design phase, if possible, consider adding skylights or large windows. If natural light is not an option, your residential lighting consultant may bring in full spectrum illumination with corner lamps, wall sconces, and centrally hanging lights.
Integrative Design
Collaboration is crucial during the design and construction phases of your remodeling project. Never consider lighting as an afterthought. A residential lighting consultant needs to be a member of your team from the beginning. That way she can weave lighting design into your plans which helps accommodate electricians, drywall installers, HVAC, plumbing, etc.
Creative Spaces understands how lighting design is an essential element that elevates your project and makes your home unique. As part of our commitment to our clients, we believe in integrity, excellence, and passion from design conception to completion.