Stylish Lighting

Contemporary Kitchen Lighting

2009-09-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

For most people the kitchen is no longer just a place to cook but the very heart of the home and this is borne out by the amount of money typically spent on fitting out a kitchen. The kitchen is also a space that is used extensively both by day and at night so it's especially important to get the lighting right.

The stark, cold fluorescent strip lights that were once a common feature have no place in the world of contemporary kitchen lighting, which offers a wide variety to choose from. Recessed spot lights, tracks, dimmer controlled pendants, wall sconces, low-voltage and of course LED lights in all manner of guises now mean that the problem today is simply narrowing the choice down to a suitable set for your particular kitchen needs.

A notable aspect of successful kitchen lighting is the way it operates on different levels to match the way that kitchens themselves often serve many purposes. This is typically accomplished by grouping lighting into distinct types (ambient, task and mood) and then blending these groups to achieve different effects.

Incidentally, the term "mood lighting" is used here to cover what are also often called decorative, accent or feature lighting in lighting design parlance. Regardless, the basic principle is to assign a separate circuit to each main group of lighting types so that they may be individually controlled (preferably by dimmer switches) to adjust the balance between them.

A characteristic of effective ambient lighting is that it is unobtrusive. Low voltage halogen (or these days LED) spotlights recessed flush with the ceiling create a subtle overall background illumination and set the stage for the more showy lighting elements.

Of course you will have to get down to food preparation at some point and so good task lighting is absolutely essential in any kitchen. You cannot rely on ambient lighting, no matter how bright, since the layout of kitchen work surfaces invariably results in shadows. A popular solution is to fit regular low-voltage or LED lights underneath units so that bright light shines directly on the surface in front of you and is not in your eyes.

Mood lighting is merely a means to create whatever ambience you want for your kitchen, for example angled up-lighters hidden above wall units or spot lights to accent particular features or maybe eye-catching pendants dropping over a dining area or setting low-heat low-voltage (LED's are perfect) lights into glass fronted wall cabinets or a plinth even.

The subject of LED lights and the wealth of new kitchen lighting ideas they offer is a whole new topic unto itself. LED lights give off virtually no heat, are over ten times cheaper to run, and are lightweight, tough, long lasting and remarkably versatile. They can be applied to ambient, task and mood lighting and will always lend a certain elegant sparkle to any kitchen.

LED Kitchen Lighting

2009-04-09T04:44:00.000-07:00

Look carefully at most stylish kitchen lighting designs and you will notice a surprising amount of individual lighting elements deployed. Kitchen lighting needs all manner of different types of lighting for the many discrete zones found in a kitchen - each with their own special requirements. Just about the least effective way to light a kitchen is using a few bright fluorescent tubes mounted somewhere on the ceiling - it simply looks ghastly and you will also develop permanent "standing in your own shadow" syndrome.

Many people opt then to install a bank of halogen down lighters spread out across the kitchen ceiling and put in specialist lighting to illuminate worktops and hobs. Which works well enough from a design perspective, but halogen lamps are: a) very, very hot; b) have short life spans; and c) are very expensive to run.

Which presents a massive opportunity for LED kitchen lighting which delivers pretty much everything that halogen lamps do but without all the down sides (LEDs run cool (and look cool), live longer than elephants, and cost a pittance to run). Better than, all you have to do is pull out existing halogen spots and replace with LED spotlights (such as the highly rated Sharp Zenigata LED spotlight).

If you are using mains powered (i.e. GU10 format) lights then that's it. You're done. For 12v lighting you additionally need to replace 12v transformers with one (or more, depending on the number of lights involved) constant voltage 12v LED driver. And then you're done.

Could this get any simpler? I think not.

The three main things to bear in mind when buying LED spotlights are: luminosity (brightness); colour temperature (how cool/blue or warm/yellow the light looks); and beam angle. Aim to get each of these factors as close as you can to your original halogen lamps and your new LED kitchen lighting should prove an immediate success.

Another vital factor that determines how any artificial light appears is the surface it shines on. For a warm effect, aim LED spot lights at warm colored areas (terracotta tiles, natural wood or just a warmly painted wall). To create eye-catching effects, try using blue LEDs directed at suitable surfaces - blue LEDs reflected off blues and greens and materials such as granite and steel can look stunning.

Use LED lights with varying characteristics in combination with different textures and colors to obtain a range of dramatic effects in different zones throughout the kitchen. The possibilities are practically endless, which can of course be a problem unto itself. Sound advice for seekers after stylish LED kitchen lighting is to keep it simple and go with just one or two ideas - you'll be surprised how stunning even a small amount of LED kitchen lighting can look.

Lighting and Home Decorating

2009-02-26T10:45:00.000-08:00

Stylish lighting in a domestic setting is about more than just showy designs and eye-catching effects. A home is by definition a very personal space and where most of us spend a great deal of "down-time". This means that the lighting we select for our own homes has to both blend in with the prevailing style in terms of decor and perform its intended function.

By way of an example, consider the different requirements of a kitchen and a dining area. Both to do with food and both requiring a balance between being stylish and functional. There the similarities end. I have yet to see a kitchen that pulled of "stylish & functional" by using subdued lighting with the occasional retro floor lamp carefully positioned near strategic white goods to create a certain ambience.

Equally, I doubt there have been many dinner parties where the use of 35w halogen spotlights greatly enhanced the relaxed and jovial bonhomie around the elegantly dressed table. This is not rocket science. But there is a lot more to creating functional stylish lighting than just realizing that crisp, bright light is appropriate when preparing food and soft, mellow tones are better suited to the business of eating it. In many ways, it's not unlike the difference between plonking a TV in the corner and taking care to think about decorative TV Stands for a finishing touch. Both work, but which do you think is going to look way better?

Lighting forms a significant part of the overall designs we create for our private living spaces, but it is only a part of the whole. It has to work in harmony with existing colors and textures, sometimes to enhance or hilight a feature, sometimes to either contrast with or complement materials and fabrics. The possibilities are more or less endless and that in a sense is where you, the designer of your home steps in; to decide which among the infinite permutations fulfils your personal criteria of stylish and functional.

It's at this point that half the folk reading this run from the room shrieking “But I don't know anything about lighting and decor!” Well come back in and calm down. These are all just individual aspects of home decorating which anyone can learn. If you've even so much as bought a cushion for a sofa and been pleased with the result then that counts as an instance of successful home design.

The truth is no one else can actually decide whether that quirky palm tree lamp heightens the sense of tropical paradise you're trying to create in the lounge or looks, well, a bit kitsch. It's not their home; they don't share your tastes. Only you can make that call; and in a sense you can't get it wrong. If it works for you then it's right; if it doesn't then just try something else.

Stylish LED Lighting

2009-02-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

There can be few more stylish forms of lighting than LEDs. Once the preserve of novelty items, torches and Christmas lights, LEDs have really started to come of age in the last year or so and I believe will soon rival and then overtake conventional incandescent and even energy saving CFL light bulbs as the primary technology for domestic lighting.

The reason for this belief is simple: the convergence of two trends. First there is serious pressure from governments all over the world to ban all light bulbs that do not meet energy saving standards - and that encompasses pretty much all incandescent bulbs. Second, the extraordinary blossoming of LED technology itself, as if LED lighting was destined for this moment.

This new world where low energy lighting is fast becoming mandatory provides fertile ground for explosive development of this already impressive form of lighting. The twin imperatives of climate change and oil depletion are leading to concentrated focus on both cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels and on appliances that consume considerably less precious energy.

Lighting is both pervasive and necessary to modern life and nothing else comes remotely close to what LED lighting can already deliver and promises for the future in terms of energy saving.

Already the dominance of low voltage outdoor LED lighting and LED based solar garden lights point the way to how far and fast this technology can spread once it enters a particular field of application.

From the garden into the house itself, again we see how easily LED spotlights can replace halogen lamps in kitchens and bathrooms especially, where cool, bright, directional lighting is desirable. Cree LED spotlights provide a straightforward, direct replacement for existing 25w halogen lamps that anyone can install and reap 90% savings on their electricity bills - right now.

What about cool garage lighting using LED spotlights and wall wash effects? Garages often suffer where good natural light is concerned and fluorescent lighting is a poor choice due to it's low CRI (Color Rendering Index - the measure of how lifelike things look when rendered under artificial light) whereas LED spotlights boast a high CRI.

But it is not just that LED lighting is ultra low energy, the light quality itself is clear, clean, bright and seemingly infinitely configurable, as this introduction to LED lighting suggests.

I predict we are going to be hearing, and of course seeing, a whole lot more on the subject of stylish LED lighting.

Stylish Deck Lighting

2009-02-18T09:56:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows that LED deck lighting is available in a huge variety of colors, sizes and brightness levels and can stand up to a pretty serious pounding plus extremes of weather. But did you also know that the average LED deck light also lasts until the crack of doom (or 60,000 hours, whichever is soonest) and is so cheap to run you really don't need to care?

But you don't have to fit LED deck lights only into deck boards. Have you considered the side panels, uprights and lateral supports of pergolas? LED deck lighting is so robust and well, light, and frankly not very expensive, that it's actually an easy option to install in just about any solid outdoor structure - shed, fence, anything you can drill a hole into really.

As an aside before you run off, cordless drill in hand, to deliver a disturbingly convincing impression of a demented woodpecker, I have often wondered what the difference between a pergola and a gazebo is. Thanks to the modern wonder of the world that is Wikipedia I now know that a pergola is in fact a type of gazebo. So there you go.

Back to the matter at hand... LED deck lights are mostly blue or white, but you can find other colors as well as color changing LED deck lights. How you use colour in garden lighting can significantly influence the effects you can achieve. The cooler blues and to a lesser degree whites create an illusion of being further away while warmer yellows and reds (and even "warm" whites) seem much closer. Obviously, brightness can also be used to similar effect - lower level lighting will appear to be distant and brighter lights quite close - and at night of course this effect works best since any extraneous context that might shatter the illusion is lost in the darkness.

If you install LED deck lighting so that it both incorporates its primary function of enhancing your deck and "spills over" into the wider garden, you can fully integrate home-patio-garden to create a stunning night time environment to appreciate night after night. Fit deck lights into existing structural elements or create some for the purpose - a set of short wooden stakes hammered into the ground alongside a path would make an ideal platform for LED deck lights to illuminate the pathway, for example.

Yet another facet to the amazing versatility of outdoor LED lighting.

Stylish Garden Lighting

2008-12-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

How many times have you heard this classic piece of gardening advice: design your garden as if it was another room (or set of rooms) in your house. It's sound advice because home and garden decor are, when you think about it, closely associated with each other.

But when was the last time you refurbished a room and like, just kinda forgot to put any lighting in. Oh yes, it's quite delightful with the contrast between the wallpaper and the dado rail while the curtains perfectly complement the suite, it's just a shame you can only use this room during office hours when you're out at work, on account of being unable to see your hand in front of your face let alone pick out the turquoise stripe on the matching cushions when it goes dark.

Yet how many times have you seen a beautiful garden fade into the empty blackness of the night 'cos no-one thought to add any lighting? It's not difficult to add stylish garden lighting using any of the contemporary solar garden lighting kits available these days.

Use garden lighting pretty much the same way you would indoor domestic lighting - draw attention towards those features you want to stand out and away from other areas, provide stylish functional lighting such as illuminated path markers and use low level ambient lighting to create "moods".

Your first consideration with garden lighting has to be whether to go solar or low-voltage mains electricity. The principal pros and cons of the two approaches are as follows. Solar powered garden lights are easy and quick to install and rearrange later, whereas low voltage garden lighting requires that you lay and protect an electrical cable to all areas requiring lighting. On the other hand, mains powered garden lighting can be easily controlled from a central point, is often brighter and doesn't suffer due to cloud cover and short winter days (the converse being the case for solar garden lights).

The best way to get started with mains powered outdoor lighting is to install a plug-in low voltage ring system. That's just jargon for a low-voltage (12 volts only, so very safe) cable laid out roughly where you might want to add lighting with one end connected to a 12v transformer (that bit goes indoors since the transformer input is standard mains voltage).

With a framework such as this, you can easily connect LED garden lights to any point on the cable, usually using specially designed weatherproof connectors supplied with either or both the transformer and lighting units.

The reasons for using LED garden lights are many:

LED's are robust and suitable for outdoor use;
they last one heck of a long time (think decades without bulb changes);
LEDs are sharper and usually more colourful and attractive than conventional light bulbs;
they don't get hot so no problems with scorching or contact with water;
LED lights use typically less than 10% of the power of incandescent or halogen bulbs.

That last point isn't just about running costs (though that is also a consideration - why pay 10 times as much to illuminate your garden - and have to keep replacing bulbs?). The real point is that you get more bang for your buck, or more accurately, more light from your transformer.

The output load available from any domestic 12v transformer is limited (it varies, but 100w maximum load is quite common). Put 5 times 20w halogen spot lights on your system and that's it, you can add no more lighting - time to invest in a second transformer. But with LED lights rated at between 1 to 3 watts for the equivalent light output you can immediately see how many more lights you can add to your system. And with so many different styles and colors available with LED garden lights that stylish night-time garden is even easier to achieve.

What is Stylish Lighting?

2008-12-16T03:27:00.001-08:00

So what is Stylish Lighting? Let's start with light itself. Light is everything. It's the colors of a sunset, the thin hues of a pale winter sun, the brooding tones of storm clouds. And lighting is in a sense an attempt to capture particular moods, to create a vibrant or restful or clinical theme for a space so as to match its intended purpose.

With appropriate lighting you can create any effect you want. If you've ever been to a theatre you will know how dramatically a set can be brought to life to enhance different elements in the production, simply by throwing light of varying colors and intensity at an otherwise blank and drab backdrop. There's nothing mystical or mysterious about this and it's a technique that can be easily applied at work, at home, in public spaces, and even to create cool garage lighting ideas.

Yet it is astonishing how many examples of poor lighting there are when it costs so little to create stylish lighting instead. Going off at a tangent, it puts me in mind of the old adage that it costs nothing to be pleasant; the flip side to that is the real and significant cost of being selfish, rude and generally unpleasant. Think about it - if all you care about is me, me, me there is little chance that others will look out for you and lend you a hand. One of the many delightful ironies of life - those who take invariably end up with much less than those who give.

But back to the point; the difference in cost between horrid lighting and stylish lighting is typically very little. The main difference between the two lies not in financial outlay but in the simple application of a bit of thought first. Deciding what effect you are after and considering what elements might be applied to achieve it. That's it in a nutshell really.

Yes, there are a few technical aspects such as different types of light source and how they interact with different materials, but other than that there are few rules as such. Everyone knows the difference between the kind of dingy lighting so prevalent in government buildings especially and the kind of stylish lighting that enhances the purpose of a given space and attracts people towards it. Even mundane workaday lighting can benefit from a moment's thought - which would you rather: strong, sharp lighting such as can easily be found with for example dazor lamps or cheap desk lighting that doesn't really "save" money and can cause eye-strain?

Lighting is not unlike art, where a tiny (one might say insignificant) minority would have you believe that a turd nailed to a breeze block represents the way forward, but for the overwhelming majority its not that hard to figure out what might actually look good hung on a wall.

Quite often in fact, lighting and art can combine and become a single artifact. A great example of this is easily found in the beautiful, timeless, classic and ultra-stylish Tiffany lamps that are simply gorgeous as works of glass sculpture. Granted, they're not cheap, but should you ever have a few hundred dollars to spare and want something that will stay with you for ever, buy one. Speaking as something of a serial offender where Tiffany is concerned, I guarantee it won't be the last you buy either!

Personal taste, judgment and common sense are the key elements to creating stylish lighting. In other words, stylish lighting is accessible to everyone.