Home lighting fixtures and color reflections

Paint and wallpaper are just not enough when decorating when trying to bring your furnishings and colors all together. Lighting plays a huge role in how your eyes perceive the color that you are trying to portray.

Before you purchase any lamp or home lighting fixture ask yourself: Where do I want to place the light and what is it’s purpose? If I asked my husband this he would say to make things brighter my answer to this is "well Dah". Choosing its purpose and placement will determine the style and its function. After thinking about this you will know whether you want to buy a surface-mount, ceiling fixture, wall light, decorative lamp, track lighting or recessed lights (down lights). Each of these will serve a different function and produce a certain color of light in the room. Because what you are doing at any certain time requires different types of lighting options.

Abot Color and Reflection

Light is part of a wider range of electromagnetic radiation, produced in waves. The Intensity of light waves produces the color. Light bulbs are rated by color temperature measured in Kelvin degrees. Temperatures below 3500 degrees are called warm tones and above are blue or cool tones. To give you an idea summer sunlight is rated 5500 degrees. Cool fluorescent and white fluorescents are between 3500 and 4500 degrees. Candlelight is around 2000. So the majority of home lighting is between 2500 and 3000 degrees.

How Light Interacts With Our Home Décor

Different kinds of light produced by lamps and ceiling fixtures and the type of bulb used, affects how we see our wallpaper, paint and furnishings. (How many times have you bought a new outfit brought it home from the store and said it didn’t look like this when I tried it on) There is a reason stores use colored fluorescent lights.

This is called color rendition and reflection. How we see an objects color is determined by not only the objects color, but the color of light shining on it. For instance a blue tray will look blue when a light source has blue in the spectrum.

Now if you where to shine a red light beam at the same tray it would look grayish and dull! So what this means is that your choice of lamp or light fixture will have an effect on the color of your walls and furniture. Plus the reverse of this is true, that the color of our paint/wallpaper will affect the light level.

Meaning if you have earthy tones in your home you will need more lamps and lighting. Notice I didn’t say just add a stronger light bulb. This will actually make things worse by creating more shadows and changing the color of your room slightly. What you really need is another light source.

How Much Light Is Enough

When trying to decide how much light is required for a certain room, first think of what tasks are being done there. Below is some more on how to figure out how much light you need. (It is only a general guide line):

Get a hold of a 35mm camera with a built in light meter. All home lighting is measured by footcandles. Below is the minimum standard for certain household tasks. See how you do and if you need to add more lamps or fixtures.

Entertaining and Dining – 10 to 20 footcandles
Reading or Makeup – 50 to 100
Kitchen General – 20 to 50
Studying – 50 to 100
Sewing and Hobbies or Crafts – 75 to 200
Work Shops - 75 to 200

In most cases the above can be achieved by buying a different type or strength of light bulb. This of course only holds true for small areas, if it is a larger room you will need to add anther table lamp, floor lamp, wall sconce or ceiling fixture.