Skimp on all other furnishings, but speak to most designers and they’ll recommend you to at least invest in good lighting.
The Winter Palace chandelier, in a room designed by Angelina Sanz. Note our rule of thumb of chandelier sizes in the article.
Now that you’ve been permanently at home for the past year, and 2021 seems to be more of that, you’ll want to make permanent improvements to your space. Nothing does that quite like getting the right lighting. It will set the ambience, help to define spaces in open-plan spaces and make that $15 basket Kmart look like its made to be on a magazine cover.
The Winter Palace chandelier, in a much larger size here, is more impactful and gives a completely different vibe. This chandelier includes Austrian Crystal beads.
TIP 1: CREATE A FOCAL POINT
When there’s no order and focal point in a space, the eye searches and scans the space without settling on a clear standout piece. As such, in a larger space such as a dining room or living room, use a chandelier or pendant lamp to anchor the eye line and create a sense of unity in the large area. In smaller rooms, we recommend anchoring the eyeline to the corners to create an illusion of space and expansiveness.
A rule of thumb for size of chandeliers is if you add up the length and width of your room in metres, your chandelier should be 10x that total number. For example, if the room is 4 metres x 4 metres, the chandelier or pendant lamp should have an approximate diameter of 80cm, so any chandeliers with a width of 70-90cm can be considered. Discover our comprehensive guide to Lladró’s porcelain chandeliers.
A bathroom designed by Sinmas Studio featuring the Lladró NightBloom pendant lamps
TIP 2: ADD LAYERS OF LIGHTING BASED ON FUNCTION
You would probably have heard this before, but how do you actually create layers of lights? Other than getting a professional’s advice, here are three layers that will help you select the right lighting.
TASK LIGHTING
It is always good to start from task lighting, ensuring that the space is appropriately lit. Your home office would need a desk lamp so it is easy for you to read or see what you are working on. Comparatively, your kitchen might need a mix of downlights over work areas, and other ceiling lamps for more ambient light.
AMBIENT LIGHTING
Combined with task lighting, ambient lighting provides shadow-free areas and fills up lighting gaps. Ambient lighting doesn’t overpower the room. These are usually dimmable to balance artificial light with natural light dependant
ACCENT AND DECORATIVE LIGHTING
Our favourite of them all, accent and decorative lighting injects flair and personality. Scale is important here. As mentioned above, if you are looking for a chandelier, read Tip 1 to get the best-sized chandelier or pendant lamp for your area. Wall, table and floor accent lamps can also double up as task lamps and define the space within your room, like that perfect reading lamp in the corner where you love curling up next to finish that novel.
An accent lamp is a good way to highlight the details of the other furnishings you’ve carefully picked, adding another piece in the same style or colour reinforces the aesthetic you’ve selected. In general, these unique architectural lamps should be three times brighter than surrounding ambient lighting to give the best impact.
Flexible task lighting that lasts 6-7 hours (left). Use cordless lamps when you host your next dinner (middle)! Move your daily nightcap to a different spot every day (right).
TIP 3: INCORPORATE CORDLESS LAMPS
Cordless lamps solve a few problems at once and is a neat way to incorporate some flexibility to your lifestyle. Most apartments or old homes have a shortage of electrical plugs available, it just never is enough! Yes, you can call in an electrician to get another pair installed for you, but if you are renting or aren’t completely sure on the placement of these yet, it is smart to have a cordless lamp instead. It is much safer and cleaner aesthetically to use a cordless lamp you can recharge when you are done. Lladró cordless lamps are all fitted with LEDs, so they’ll give you up to 50,000 hours of light - that’s probably more than you’ll need for the next 5 years anyway.
This also gives you more ways for you to change up your living space at whim. Say you have a designated work area, but do want to change it up for today, you can just bring your cordless lamp to another area of the room or to your dining table and work there instead. Take it outdoors when you need a lamp whilst you have your nightcap, and it creates a beautiful ambient light filtered through the porcelain lampshade.
These dimmable lamps are also beautifully decorative and comes in many different colours. Click here to discover why Lladró porcelain doesn’t fade.