I’m sure you’re familiar with the ancient Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”. How about chronic energy crises, uncertainty about the climate, massive imbalances in population / age / gender, food shortages, escalation of conflicts and a myriad other challenges that are clamouring at the gates already. Throw technology and political and cultural upheaval into the mix and it’s probably never been more “interesting”.

So where do you and I fit into all this? This brave new world that has such troubles in it. A world of threats and calamities, yet undreamed of possibilities and opportunities. What might be an intelligent response to interesting times?

Well, times they may be a changing, but people fundamentally don’t. Our most elemental desires remain; same as they ever were. People always have and do still seek to improve themselves, their surroundings, their prospects for the future. That’s what life itself is about. A constant quest to survive, adapt, improve.

These days our core needs increasingly find expression in various forms of self-help, self-awareness, self-fulfillment. The word “self” says it all, for commendable as it is to strive to make the best of oneself, to invest in personal growth, the fact is that mainstream Personal Development has long teetered on the edge of sterile self-obsession, with little or nothing to say about the wider world and your or my place in it.

On the other hand, those who survey the major issues of our time, presuming to know who is to blame and what is to be done, invariably miss the point that these are not issues for the world as such. They are caused by and affect people - billions of individual people just like you and me, trying only to squeeze what they can from an all too brief moment of life.

The Writing’s (Always) On The Wall

So one has to ask, what’s the point of it all if the world has either left your perfectly developed ass in the dust or alternatively gone to hell in a handcart? Equally where’s the purpose in being well informed and worldly but closed to yourself, your place in this world and your full potential?

The interesting times in which we find ourselves are entirely a product of the human condition. A mass expression of the basic desires each and every person shares. Politicians who devise policies and launch initiatives to tackle “the problem” just don’t get it - we are the problem.

Cast your eyes around. Few if any of the major issues of our time have crept up undetected. Anyone who didn’t forsee the current energy “shock” at least a decade ago was either not looking or not thinking. The writing was on the wall way back when, and now there is fresh writing on the wall, foretelling the things that will “interest” us in the years ahead.

Even though much that masquerades as information is wrong, stupid or serving someone’s agenda (and frequently all three) it is not difficult these days to form an intelligent perspective on world affairs. Nor does it require superhuman powers to cut through the banal platitudes and pernicious twaddle (Law of Attraction anyone?) that long ago became common currency in the field of introspection.

You cannot suck excess Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere nor refill depleted oil wells, but you can understand what is happening, what might happen next, how it affects you and figure out your own optimal response. In other words connect yourself and your goals with the real world to the real benefit of both.

Your Own Special Song

Since you’re self-evidently still reading this, I’d like to ask, do you want to:

• Find love?
• Earn more money?
• Develop as a person?
• Do the best for your children?
• Make the most of your time in the world?
• Spend more time doing the things you most enjoy?
• Leave this world in some small way a better place for your part in it?

Guess what? You’re not alone. As John Donne famously observed: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”. John Donne knew a thing or two.

I’m not even vaguely suggesting I have any answers to any of the above. But I do know that for the most part we all share these same basic desires; that far better people than those who inhabit the self-help industry have given them serious consideration; and that they underpin not just each person’s own little narrative but the whole human story.

So why dance to the Charlatans’ Waltz? Use your intelligence. As Cass Elliot so wonderfully put it, make your own kind of music, sing your own special song.

Because when it comes down to it, all each of us really have is our world and our time upon it.

The Importance Of Kitchen Lighting

If there’s one room in the house that is almost notorious for the amount of money that people spend on kitting it out, it has to be the kitchen. And there’s a good reason that so many folk spend so much money: for most of us the kitchen is the centre of household life, the very heart of the home.

The kitchen is also, almost by definition, the room that gets most utilised both during daylight hours and well into the evening, so it’s clearly a space where getting the lighting right is absolutely critical. After all, why pour so much time, money and effort into getting the just right kitchen units and flooring etc only to have it all resemble a particularly dreary railway waiting room thanks to poor lighting?

Kitchen lights have evolved almost beyond recognition from the bad old days when it seemed that most every kitchen sported an obligatory fluorescent strip or several in the centre of the ceiling (an especially nasty trend that is unfortunately still with us in some kitchens to this day). Nowadays you can pick from kitchen track lighting systems, recessed spots, wall lights, lights under, over and inside cabinets, retractable kitchen pendant lights and also control selected lighting elements with dimmer switches. The problem still is choice; only this time it’s not lack of choice that’s the issue, but almost having too much.

The Main Types Of Kitchen Lighting

Modern kitchen lighting design very much takes into account the multi-purpose nature of kitchens to produce a lighting solution that also functions on different levels. This is accomplished by first understanding the various lighting requirements of a kitchen, secondly grouping lights according to each of these requirements, and lastly combining these lighting groups in different ways to create a range of effects suitable for many purposes.

The main lighting groups for kitchens draw on much the same design principles found in regular home lighting ideas: task, ambient and mood lighting. Incidentally “mood lighting” is a term that covers aspects of what are otherwise known as feature, decorative and/or accent lighting. Also, there are no hard and fast rules about what fits into which category - some types of lighting will naturally fall into more than one camp.

Task lighting is essential for the stages involved in preparing food (the underlying purpose of a kitchen after all) while ambient light, aside from helping you avoid bashing into things in the gloom, plays an important role in supporting other lighting types.

Ambient light should provide a general all-over illumination that is fairly soft and unobtrusive. Effectively it sets a background light level that other forms of lighting use as a base. This is best illustrated by considering two extremes. In the first case an absence of ambient light would mean that other lighting would seem overly bright (against a largely dark background) yet ironically not bright enough to properly illuminate the room. In the second, over-bright ambient light would just wash out whatever other lighting was present - you simply wouldn’t notice it.

Task lighting is pretty much what it sounds like; it should be directed at an area that requires ample light so you can, for example, see what you’re chopping (hopefully not your fingers), cooking and eventually eating. Since performing a task is mostly synonymous with using your hands, task lighting should be in front of you (so you don’t cast your own shadow onto the space) and above what you are working with, but also in such as way as to not get in your eyes or otherwise cause reflective glare.

Mood lighting is what you use to create atmosphere in a room and to give it a personality. It frequently serves little purpose other than making the space look attractive. In a kitchen this is often achieved with hanging pendant lights, carefully positioned spotlights and, since the advent of LED, accent lighting (as a general rule, you want static light fixtures that can’t be knocked over or will get in the way).

Developing effective kitchen lighting ideas rests on much the same basic principle as that underpinning general interior lighting design: a good mix of lighting types (see above) plus the wherewithal to adjust the relative balance between them. This is in fact no more complicated than ensuring that each group of lights is assigned to its own switch (and preferably a dimmer switch). It can also be helpful to further sub-divide according to location (for example being able to independently control lighting for a central kitchen island, or a dining area at one end of the kitchen).

Coordinated lighting is also about matching light fittings not only to each other but ensuring that they harmonise with the other features, fittings and furniture in the room. Look at the existing decor style - is it traditional or modern? This tells you immediately whether say a classic Tiffany lamp might fit right in or look out of place.

Kitchen Island Lighting

As noted above, it can be helpful to sub-divide lighting not only by type but also according to location or zone. A key zone in most contemporary kitchens is the kitchen island. These are invariably multi-purpose areas that find themselves used for preparing food, eating at (bar stools come in handy), doing homework, somewhere to rest a laptop computer, reading the newspaper, the list goes on.

Among the most obvious benefits of a kitchen island are that it provides more working and storage space. If all your kitchen units are pushed back against the walls like agoraphobic wall flowers then this clearly limits how many you can install. Having to negotiate windows and doors can also reduce the usable wall space in even quite large kitchens.

A kitchen island can also add “depth” and interest to an otherwise uninspiring space. Many kitchens arrange all the storage cupboards and working areas around the periphery, leaving a great void in the middle. This not only looks boring, it means that the kitchen isn’t properly connected if you have to cross a sea of empty floor to get from one zone to another.

Placing an island in the centre of the kitchen both utilises otherwise wasted space and makes it considerably easier to layout the classic working “triangle” - the zone that has key elements such as the sink, chopping board and hob all within ergonomic reach. There is nothing to stop you in fact setting things like cookers, sinks and hobs (in addition to extra cupboards) into the island itself if that seems a better location for them than fitted against a wall.

But most probably the number one reason for the popularity of kitchen islands is that they can really add a touch of class to a kitchen. Ironically, by filling in that dead space an island will often make the room appear much larger - similar to the effect of adding shrubs and flower beds to an expanse of lawn, or furnishing a room. It’s due to an effect well known by interior and landscape designers whereby “the eyes are led” around areas of interest rather than allowing the whole space to be taken in at once.

Many people also make use of a kitchen island as a place to gather round or even as a formal dining area which can again alter the perception of the kitchen as a whole, especially when smart kitchen island lighting is added to the mix. In fact, whether you design your kitchen island as a working area, an informal bar or anything else, it provides an absolutely ideal opportunity to introduce some great lighting effects.

An island provides a superb platform for many contemporary kitchen lighting effects; as well as hanging kitchen pendant lights from the ceiling, it is possible using LED strip lights or mini spots to install plinth lighting and/or floor level lights in the toe-kick boards. Whereas such effects might seem gaudy if installed in a traditional everything-round-edges kitchen, kitchen islands are by nature centre-piece features that demand and can take a lot of attention. The example below shows a set of brightly coloured pendants that both decorate and provide task lighting over an island workspace.

Lighting a kitchen island therefore means trying to satisfy many demands; it should complement the overall style of the kitchen yet carve out a well defined space for itself, and it needs to both decorative and functional.

A well established solution is to use pendant downlights that either hang fairly low (though not so low as to obstruct activities or bash your head) or can be adjusted vertically to allow for subtly different effects. The key tip with using pendant lighting above a kitchen island is to select the right number, size, shape and color. If the island is say long and narrow then two or three smaller kitchen pendants that echo the shape would in most cases be preferable to a single large pendant light which would suit a a more concise area.

There is however one major caveat where kitchen islands are concerned, and that is size. You can still include an island in even a fairly modest kitchen, but you absolutely must ensure that it doesn’t eat into space you can’t afford to lose, restrict your ability to manoeuvre or look out of place. An island should complement the rest of your kitchen, not detract from or overpower it.

But if your kitchen is large enough then honestly there are few better ways to improve both its functionality and appearance than installing an island unit. But do remember that if your intention is to use it as a breakfast bar or similar then be sure that you can tuck the stools completely away or the whole setup will eventually drive you mad.

Lighting Other Zones In The Kitchen

Choosing a suitable shape and color for a light fitting is a roundabout way of referring to “style”. Bold metallic finishes and clean lines for example might jar in a traditional kitchen but would blend perfectly with the fittings in a contemporary kitchen. Another consideration is whether the shades allow some light through to illuminate the pendants themselves or only shine downwards, in which case the shape of the light pool on the surface below becomes an important factor.

Other zones suitable for lighting include the spaces between worktops (or counters) and wall units above them. These absolutely cry out for under cabinet lights for a whole variety of reasons, not the least of which is if you’ve gone to the trouble and expense of fitting nice countertops then why not show them off? Granite, marble and many composite materials that contain minute flakes of reflective metal look stunning when illuminated by under cabinet kitchen lighting.

Other good reasons include the fact that under-cabinet lighting adds instant dramatic effect and makes a kitchen seem somehow more luxurious (for very little cost), and of course these work surfaces tend to get assigned to various tasks and thus need good lighting. It’s common to find that tea or toast making facilities tend to gravitate to a particular spot on the counter for example, or the chopping board and knife block, or the place you always put things down when you come in. Think about it - when has “gloom” ever been fashionable?

In the example below, a technique commonly seen with plinth lighting has been moved down to the toe-kick (or kick-board) to both highlight the floor, increase the impression of space and suggest a “floating” appearance to the units.

Note the ambient lighting set into the kitchen ceiling lights plus the under-cabinet task lights and up-lights above the wall cabinets. The sharp-eyed will also immediately spot that this example clearly makes extensive use of LED lights, most notably set above the reflective kick-board which both enhances the appearance of the floor and makes it seem larger. There are also LEDs above and below the wall cabinets and additionally set inside the glass fronted ones shown to the left.

The growing use of LED home lighting and in particular its application to modern kitchen lighting design is pretty much a whole new topic itself. These extraordinary little lights emit virtually no heat, cost very little to run and are extremely lightweight yet highly robust and of course highly versatile. LED lights are also equally able to deliver task, ambient or mood lighting and, as can be seen in the illustration above, add a certain crisp elegance to a space.

The Difference Between Garden Lighting and Home Lighting

Garden lighting is in many respects a close cousin of home lighting. It is a long established doctrine of garden design to consider outdoors as simply another room (or set of rooms) and the basic principles for creating effective home lighting broadly apply to garden lighting also.

Lighting designers group different types of lighting under particular categories, these being: ambient, accent, decorative and task lighting. But before we look further at these categories, it’s worth reviewing the main ways in which outdoor spaces differ from interior rooms.

The most obvious difference is scale; rooms are bounded by walls and ceilings and thus are comparatively small compared to outside where the sky really is the limit height wise and your boundaries are potentially as far as your eye can see. Where lighting is concerned this presents an interesting issue: lack of reflection. Interior lighting always reflects off the containing surfaces and fills the space with ambient light; outdoor lighting for the most part disappears into space.

The second point follows on from the lack of reflected ambient light. Outside you have not only a blank canvas but also a black canvas; without lighting you cannot see anything so in a sense you are free to ignore the real, physical layout of your garden and project whatever takes your fancy. If you don’t want your garden shed in the scene for example you can quite easily make it disappear at night. Conversely you can just as easily create a focal point that isn’t apparent during the daytime.

The third clear difference relates to function; you may indeed treat your garden as an additional room, or suite of rooms, but you will in all likelihood want to use that space very differently to how you use indoors. Just as you would use quite different lighting for a bedroom compared to say a kitchen, most people use outdoor lighting to create a relaxed mood for unwinding and socialising.

Different Types of Outdoor Lighting

Ambient lighting is used slightly differently outdoors and is less a platform to support other lighting types and more an effect in its own right. It is most commonly employed to provide a background glow in certain zones, rather than picking things out sharply, which is largely the role of accent lighting.

Both accent and decorative lighting perform much the same function in the garden as in the home; their jobs are simply to accentuate certain features and attract attention respectively.

Task lighting in a garden is something of a misnomer. Few people actually want enough light to be able to work or read outdoors, they do however want to be able to follow a path without falling into a flowerbed, or find the latch in a doorway and that’s usually the scope of task lighting outdoors.

The category to which any specific garden light fitting belongs depends to a large extent on what its characteristics are how it is used. For example a spotlight could be pointed up at a tree (accent) or diffused onto a flat surface such as a fence (ambient) or even angled downwards to illuminate a pathway (task). It’s doubtful that a spotlight would ever qualify as decorative though.

This leads neatly to the topic of light fitting characteristics. Whether any given light fitting is suitable for any specific purpose depends largely on three qualities: beam angle; luminosity; and color. There is also the matter of whether the system use mains (usually 12v low voltage) or solar powered garden lighting, and also whether they are incandescent or LED garden lights, but this is covered in detail elsewhere as indicated by the links.

Main Features of Garden Lights

Beam angle determines whether the light is widely spread or tightly focused. Often it is desirable to be able to direct light to a specific spot and not spill out all over the place or shine in your eyes; other times the requirement is the exact opposite, for light to be emitted in all directions from the light source.

Luminosity is a measure of how bright a light source is. The perceived level of brightness can also be affected by beam angle and brightness, so for example a narrow beam spot light rated at 10w will seem to project brighter light than a general purpose bulb of the same nominal power, but the light will be confined to a small area. Also, cooler colours appear sharper and brighter to us than warmer ones (yellows and red).

Light color covers both color as usually understood (orange, lilac etc) and white light color temperature i.e. how “warm” or “cool” it appears. There is to a certain extent some overlap here since regardless of whether a light is actually say yellow or “warm white” it will lend a much softer, less well defined appearance to the subject being lit than either a blue colored or “cool white” light source.

However there is another factor to consider in a garden, which is the color already present (foliage, flowers, stone, water, etc) and the fact that some plants and trees are deciduous or change color as the seasons pass.

As a rule it is best to stick to white light or possibly slightly blue or green when directly illuminating planting. Warmer colors have a tendency to produce a somewhat garish and sickly looking result. Also, white light is neutral as regards seasonal changes and can enhance some aspects, for example up lighting a deciduous tree highlights the green canopy in spring and summer, brings a glow to autumn leaves and can look incredibly dramatic when the tree is bare in winter.

When used as standalone decorative features or reflected off flat surfaces or man-made objects though colored lights really do come into their own. Just try not to use colors for accent lighting unless you have a particular effect you’re aiming for.

Garden Spotlights

As hinted at above, garden spotlights can be really quite flexible. Relatively low powered units with a narrow beam are ideal for picking out detail, especially if they also tend towards cool white which makes objects seem much more crisp and dramatic. On the other hand, a high powered spot light with a reasonably wide beam angle is ideal for plighting a large tree, and if a warm bulb is used it can also be used for wall wash effects.

If the mounting for the spotlight allows it, you can angle the unit down to create either pools of light or beams that spread out on the ground, either of which can look quite effective as an alternative to traditional bollards for pathway markers.

Whether you choose to use a spotlight for up lighting, down lighting, back lighting or front lighting depends on the effect you want. Anything with an interesting shape can often be visually enhanced through the use of either back or up lighting, which naturally always looks dramatic. Back lighting of course is how you get eye-catching silhouettes, but in both cases you need to position the light source carefully so that it is not directly visible - a light shining in your eyes rather detracts from the intended effect.

Both backlight and up light also work well if used with planting that is dense enough to diffuse the light; for example, try positioning an LED spot light (LEDs give off no heat) close to the trunk of an Acer Palmatum (Japanese Maple tree) pointing up - this not only illuminates the internal branch structure but when the tree is in leaf it also resembles a large lampshade made of fine lattice work. It’s a good example of how to get two looks (daylight and night) from the same garden feature.

Main Uses of Garden Lighting

Outdoor lighting can serve many purposes, the most well known being safety, security, entertaining and aesthetic enjoyment. Being able to see where you’re going without walking into various hazards is a good enough reason for at least some garden lighting.

Whereas passive infra-red floodlights are effective for your own personal security when coming and going and certainly give warning to anyone else approaching your home, they’re not exactly easy on the eyes. But it’s a fact that most forms of lighting help to deter intruders, so even a modicum of ambient light out the back helps to keep unwanted visitors away without making your garden resemble a high security prison yard.

Entertaining outdoors has become very popular in recent years and many people use outdoor lighting to extend their living area out to the patio or deck and beyond. When installing lighting for this reason it’s helpful to treat the exercise much the same as you would when designing the decor and lighting for an interior room. Just as you divide you home into distinct zones (often, though not necessarily, corresponding one to one with specific rooms) you can mark your garden into zones which makes it easier then to understand the requirements of each area and illuminate it accordingly.

When installing garden lighting for purely aesthetic reasons i.e. to have something nice to look at in the evening as well as during the day, the world is your oyster. It is possible simply by placing lights in particular places and by varying light intensities to either showcase the inherent features of your garden or alternatively to create all manner of illusions. When the human eye sees a bright spot it automatically blocks out the surrounding area to a degree; you can take advantage of this to guide the eye where you want it to go while at the same concealing much that you would rather keep unseen.

To give an example, consider how the rules of perspective have conditioned us to expect that things become smaller, less bright and draw to a point as they recede. In the absence of the normal cues available during daylight hours, it is almost trivially easy to position lights in such a way as to fool the eye into believing that your garden goes back much further than it truly does and even in directions that don’t really exist.

Lighting And Interior Design

Lighting is one of the most important yet most frequently overlooked aspects of interior design. It can completely transform how a space both appears and feels, and provides the opportunity to effectively create two main looks (and moods): daylight and artificial light.

And of course, most people these days are perfectly well aware how vital lighting is in creating that upmarket “look and feel” to any home - after all, we are all constantly exposed to glossy magazines and television programmes that showcase designer home decor.

So how do you go about getting the same look in your own home?

The answer, interestingly, is that you don’t and for two very good reasons.

First, what you see on screen and in print is a carefully crafted confection that in most cases uses extra stage lighting that you never see (not unlike how photographic models are made to look “perfect” - makeup, lighting, touch-up).

Second, what these professional designers are usually doing is “dressing a set” - deliberately picking out and accenting interesting features. No question that it’s gorgeous to look at but could you really read a book or even sit to watch TV comfortably in there?

So then, nobody is suggesting you turn your home into some kind of stage set, but nevertheless consider how set designers are able to create myriad effects and really bring a scene to life using little more than lighting. When only the utility lighting is on most stage sets are in reality quite drab and unappealing, and that is just how a poorly lit home will seem also.

The key to creating stunning home lighting that you can also actually live with is to understand the main elements of lighting and how to combine them to produce effects that not only look good but are also effective in terms of your own real world day to day use of the space. Simply trying to copy what you see in magazines and on TV won’t actually work.

The Basic Concepts Of Home Lighting

So what are the main elements of home lighting? There are 4 basic types - decorative, accent, task and ambient - which can also be grouped into categories such as style vs. function or contrast vs. diffuse. So let’s look at what this all means.

Decorative lighting is lighting for its own sake; it deliberately draws attention to itself. Tiffany lamps are a good example.

Ambient lighting is at the other end of the spectrum; it provides overall light that doesn’t appear to come from anywhere specific. Wall wash lights and many main ceiling fixtures fit this description - the light just generally fills the room and you don’t generally notice the source.

Accent light is similar to decorative lighting except that it is the thing being lit rather than the light source itself that is the focus of attention. Any type of light that picks out features in the room counts as accent lighting.

Task lighting is what it sounds like - usually quite bright and focused light that allows you to carry out particular tasks such as reading or preparing food.

Decorative and accent lighting naturally pair up into the “style” category while ambient and task lighting are clearly more related to “function” - essentially the difference between looking cute and being useful. Contrast lighting encompasses task and accent light both of which aim to bring specific items into sharp focus, albeit for different reasons, and diffuse lighting covers both ambient and decorative lighting that is much softer and visually relaxing.

Thinking back to the interior decor “life style” magazine shots we mentioned at the beginning of this article. These are invariably heavily unbalanced in favour of “style” - decorative and particularly accent lights - but to work well in a normal domestic setting, lighting needs to be a balance of the various forms.

Clearly an area such as the kitchen is likely to be weighted most towards task lighting with little to none in the way of decorative lights. By contrast the lounge will look and feel best if the accent (excuse the pun) is on accent and decorative lighting.

Putting It All Together

So how do you combine all these elements to produce a successful home lighting design? With a bit of common sense really. Put main ambient lights on their own circuit, preferably controlled by a dimmer switch. Task lighting should go where the task is likely to be performed, so under cabinet strip lights that shine onto the worktops make sense in the kitchen, and a reading lamp behind where you might want to sit to read for example. It should also be separately switchable so you can eliminate it when not required.

Accent lighting involves identifying any architectural features or items in the room that cry out to be noticed and picking them out - for example illuminating an artwork or tracing the lines of a coving. And decorative lighting is all about positioning lamps and shades that appeal as items of interest in their own right.

In all cases it is important not to overlook ambient light - this is the backdrop to everything else and it is crucial to get it right. Too much ambient light and it will wash out your effect lighting, too little and the other lights will struggle to provide a level of illumination they were never intended for.

The plain truth is that creating effective and pleasing home lighting is not rocket science. Anyone can do it because all that is really required is to actually just stop and think about it for a moment first, try an idea out and if it appeals to you then you’re done, otherwise rinse and repeat. That said, there are a few simple guidelines to help you along if you’re apprehensive (or completely clueless) about the subject of home lighting design.

In general, the main idea to keep in mind is that light sources should (with specific exceptions) rarely be allowed to attract attention to themselves - it’s the area or objects being lit that should get the focus. With that thought uppermost, here are a handful of further basic tips…

Simple Home Lighting Guidelines

First, start with daylight. That’s right - no lights at all. Get the arrangement of a room sorted (furniture, TV, designated zones etc) before you even start to think about lighting. The room has to work properly during the day and it’s not so simple to “fix” daylight. When you’re happy with the layout, then start to think about whether you would want to utilize the space differently during the evening and where you might prefer to have light (a bright lamp right next to a TV for example is distracting at best but you see it done countless times).

Second, bright is not necessarily best. Bright light hurts our eyes - that’s why so many sunglasses get sold. If you have a need for bright light to read or work by (kitchens are a good example) then you should try to diffuse it (which is easily done by bouncing direct light off a wall or ceiling which then reflects bright but indirect light) or contain it to just the area needed (spotlights and under-cabinet lighting come to mind).

Third, most successful lighting design employs a “layered” approach - no one light or type of light can hope to meet the competing lighting needs throughout your home, or even in a single room. It’s the way in which multiple light sources are combined that gives the best effects. Some of the best design examples are to be found in kitchen lighting ideas that clearly mirror the multifuncional nature of modern kitchens.

Also, it’s often important to be able to vary light levels and (as already mentioned) putting groups of lights on dimmer switches is a very easy and effective way to achieve this goal. In fact, if you do nothing other than put your main ambient lighting on one dimmer circuit and your accent lighting on another you will find you have sufficient control over these two fundamental elements to be able to create a whole variety of moods and looks at will.

Fourth, not all light bulbs are equal. Not only do they come with different power ratings (i.e. varying levels of luminosity) but there are many different types. Obviously some light bulbs are designed to shine light in all directions while others focus light to a narrow beam. Another distinction is what is called white light color which measures how “cool” or “warm” a light source appears. Warm light produces a relaxing glow but is not so easy to read or work by, whereas cool light gives pin sharp clarity but tends to feel harsh in a domestic setting.

Different Types Of Light Bulbs - Incandescents, CFLs & LEDs

Lastly we get to the technological differences between light bulbs. These days the distinction is often characterized as being between low energy (or energy saving) and incandescent light bulbs, but in terms of underlying technology there are 3 basic types:

• Incandescent
• Fluorescent
• LED

Incandescent light bulbs work by literally burning a metal filament in a vacuum - they’re actually small heaters and little different in principle to say a bonfire where most of the energy is converted to heat but some visible light (about 10%) is also given off.

Fluorescent lamps pass an electrical charge through a gas filled tube which excites the atoms in the gas and causes them to give off ultraviolet photons - these photons aren’t actually visible to us but collide with a phosphor coating on the inside of the tube which converts some of that collision energy into heat but crucially creates secondary photons in the visible white light spectrum. CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) are what they sound (and look) like, small fluorescent tubes and most are about 4 times more efficient than equivalent brightness incandescent bulbs.

LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) are in fact a pair of semi-conductors bonded together where an electrical charge causes electrons to flow from one of the semi-conductor layers to the other and in the process drop to a lower energy state and release photons. The wavelength of the photons can be controlled by varying the thickness of the conduction band and thus produce light in any part of the spectrum (infra red, visible white, visible green, etc). Modern LEDs are typically 10 times more efficient than their incandescent counterparts.

These 3 types each in fact overlap in the energy saving lighting spectrum - HEI (High Efficiency Incandescent) bulbs count as low energy, where some fluorescents don’t - but as a general rule of thumb, incandescent lighting is inefficient, fluorescent and CFLs are fairly low energy, and LEDs are way out in front for energy efficiency.

That’s All Very Interesting But What Does It Have To Do With Home Lighting?

From your point of view, as you design your home lighting, it’s worth understanding the basic characteristics of these technologies so you can weigh up their various benefits and drawbacks. Certainly, from a financial perspective the more efficient a light bulb is the more money it will save you (and the savings can be pretty jaw dropping when you actually add up all those light bulbs and the hours they spend lit over the course of a year). But there is more to good lighting than just saving money - you do after all have to look at it for a surprisingly large part of your life.

However, before you get to considering much of anything at all, the first thing likely to smack you in the face sooner rather than later is the fact that, as part of a global initiative to address global warming, all light bulbs that fail to match “low energy” criteria are being banned (well, withdrawn from sale, but the effect is the same). This of course covers traditional incandescent GLS (General Lighting Service) bulbs - already 100w bulbs are no longer available in most countries and 60w is already being culled as you read this.

Which presents something of a dilemma, since most of us have grown used to the light quality available from incandescent bulbs and have experience of how best to use them to create pleasing lighting designs. But since this is clearly not the future of home lighting we need to examine the alternatives.

At present the most widely available alternative to incandescents for domestic lighting is the CFL; but aside from the many (quite serious) problems with CFLs, from the vantage of someone trying to create appealing home lighting the real killer is that they look, well, horrid. Fluorescent lamps have a long and less than illustrious history where it comes to sickly light quality, flicker, poor start up times and ability to survive being repeatedly switched on and off.

Why LED Is The Future Of Home Lighting

So if incandescent light bulbs are doomed and CFLs are unpleasant, what else is there? In a word LED. Now if you’re like most folk then your experience of LED lighting is probably limited to Christmas tree lights, battery operated torches and perhaps the occasional LED spotlight that doesn’t really cut it where brightness is concerned.

But let’s think about this a bit further… the underlying technology in LEDs is electronics, exactly the same in fact as computers, mobile phones, digital cameras, MP3 players and so on. Now recall how rapidly and completely these technological advances swept aside the well established and perfectly serviceable solutions that existed before.

There was (and still is) nothing fundamentally wrong with sending information by post, capturing images on photographic film, listening to music on vinyl, tape or CD - they all still work. The point is that they don’t come anywhere close to the range of possibilities, interoperability, speed of response, convenience or cost offered by electronic alternatives. So they died out and digital took over.

LED lighting was set to follow this pattern regardless, for the exact same set of reasons and simply because it is a way better technology for delivering light. But given that the playing field now has one player shortly to be sent off (incandescents) and the other (CFLs) flirting with the sin-bin for poor performance and foul play, things look absolutely wide open for LED lighting.

LED Lighting - What To Look For

But before you get down to using LED lights to create your lighting design bear in mind that cheap, first generation LED light bulbs are still out there, waiting to tempt you into disappointment. One of the principal differences between LED light bulbs and all other types is the economics of the situation; the cost of electrical lighting is almost all in the cost of electricity (running costs).

Traditional light bulbs (and to a large extent CFLs have followed the same model) have always had a low cost per unit which masks the fact that over time these cost a fortune in running and replacement costs. LED light bulbs reverse this equation - high quality LEDs cost significantly more than regular light bulbs but last many times longer and cost so little to run that in most cases the break-even point is little more than one year.

So the key is to be prepared to put money into your new lighting and treat it as an investment that will not only go on looking good but also save you a ton of money over the years. Also, read up about what to look for when buying low energy light bulbs and become familiar with this rapidly advancing technology.

Most LED lights are very bright and very directional. Though there are plenty that use the common “globe” shape to spread even light in all directions as illustrated by these warm white LED pendant lights above.

The best way to use light with these characteristics of being intensely bright and tightly focused is to bounce the light off something else and throw that reflected indirect light back into the room as these two photographs demonstrate. In this first case the designer has created a bright, well lit room that is paradoxically also subdued and comfortable to sit in by “washing” the white ceilings and walls with bright LED lights.

In this second example of LED wall washing, the room is infused with this distinctive terracotta color simply by reflecting warm white LED spot lights off a red painted wall. It’s a technique that seems perfectly suited to LED since their inherently crisp nature (most LEDs emit light in only one part of the spectrum) results in equally crisp, vibrant reflections.

Another popular technique with LED lighting is to make it appear as if the light is coming from an actual object rather then being shone at the object. In this example we see an effect that would be difficult if not impossible to replicate using conventional lighting, not least because of heat issues and constant bulb replacement headaches. It’s very simple, LEDs have been fitted into a central stair pillar to illuminate each individual step and so enhance this already eye-catching architectural feature.

And of course, LEDs could almost have been made specially for kitchen lighting with all those many textures and surfaces. This last example is reasonably typical, with cool to the touch LED lighting concealed both inside and below cabinets and the ubiquitous LED strip light used to pick out shapes as desired.

So in summary, the best home lighting designs blend each of the four main types of lighting in varying proportions (and preferably with the ability to independently switch or vary the brightness of each type) to suit both the functional purpose and desired aesthetics of each room. And the best home lighting designs - those that not only look great now but will also truly stand the test of time - are inevitably going to be those based on LED lighting.

The Main Energy Saving Light Bulb Options

It might or might not be news to you, but it is nevertheless a fact that for the past few years now most industrialized countries have been phasing out traditional incandescent light bulbs. In many places all incandescent bulbs of 60 watts and above are already unavailable as governments quietly enact legislation to enforce low energy lighting as part of a package of measures aimed at reducing global warming.

So then, whether or not you take global warming seriously, your government certainly does and consequently you will henceforth be required to light your own patch of darkness with low energy light bulbs. So what should you be looking for as you poke around the lighting shelves and find them now devoid of the old familiar light bulbs of yore?

For a start, low energy light bulbs currently come in two main forms: the fairly common CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) which has been around a few years already; and the, as yet, less well known LED (Light Emitting Diode).

A Tale Of Two Technologies

In terms of purchase price and availability, CFLs are the cheaper option and having been around longer are more plentiful. Compared to incandescent bulbs, CFL are about 4 times cheaper to run and last longer, but given that they are also presently twice as expensive to buy, many wonder at the true savings to be had with CFLs.

At present LEDs cost at least twice as much again as CFLs and are still something of a novelty in lighting, though this is set to change and fast. Many DIY and general hardware stores only offer low power LED spot lights and color changing bulbs, which serve adequately for ambient and mood lighting, but are not realistic as replacements for much existing incandescent lighting.

However, high quality LED light bulbs are easily available from specialist lighting stockists and online, and these really are more than capable of replacing halogen lamps and conventional incandescent light bulbs. For example, the Cree EvoLux LED globe is available with preset dimmer settings to emulate general service lighting ranging from 40w through 60w and right upto 100w, which is plenty bright enough for most folk. Similarly, the Sharp Zenigata LED spotlight produces light virtually indistinguishable from a 50w halogen lamp. Consumers in the UK have the excellent EXERGI LED light bulb easily available, which genuinely does replace bright halogen spot lights.

The principal difference between an LED spotlight and say an equivalent halogen spot is energy consumption, or more precisely energy wastage through heat. Some 90% of the energy used to run a conventional light bulb disappears as heat; barely 10% goes towards the very job it is supposed to do, which is produce light. As you can see, the world’s electricity bill (of which 20% is accounted for by lighting) represents wasted money and resources, not to mention environmental harm, on a staggering scale.

This also brings us to a crucial point when considering the cost of electric lighting, which is that the cost is almost entirely made of the running cost i.e. the amount of electricity used to power the lights. The purchase price of the light bulb is for most practical purposes irrelevant.

But it’s not just spot lights and some GLS applications - there are now many LED replacements for fluorescent tubes and the ubiquitous G4 halogen capsule. Both these types of lighting are absolutely pervasive in work places, public buildings and to a lesser extent in quite a number of homes.

T5 and T8 fluorescent tubes are easily replaced by retrofit LED T5 & T8 equivalent tubes. Incidentally, the name denotes the tube diameter size and as is common with lighting specification is based on eights of an inch, so a T8 tube is 8/8 (or 1 inch) and a T5 is 5/8 of an inch in diameter. The principal difference though is light quality; T5 tubes are noticeably brighter and being slimmer you can pack more into the same area.

The obvious benefits of using LED “fluorescent” tubes are the significant cost savings thanks to vastly reduced power consumption, much longer lifespan, and lack of heat to compete with air conditioning systems. Another benefit is that LED tubes don’t produce that flickering effect and are unaffected when connected to energy saving systems that switch lights on and off automatically in response to the presence or absence of people (something that regular and compact (CFL) fluorescent tubes suffer badly from).

LED G4 capsule replacements are another way to tackle stealth halogen lighting applications; many people are not necessarily aware that G4 halogen capsules (very small bi-pin light bulbs) are commonly fitted in, for example, desk lights, slimline cabinet lights and other applications that require a very bright but also very compact light bulb (yet another example of where CFLs cannot deliver). And once again these ferociously hot and wasteful halogen lamps can be simply replaced with LED G4 retrofit versions that will pay back their investment costs many, many times over.

Getting back to the LED then, this technology presently reverses the heat to light ratio since over 90% of the input energy is converted to light with very little heat loss. The word “presently” however conceals the really astounding feature of LEDs which is that they constantly decrease in cost yet double in power roughly every 18 months. Since they are at heart simply electronic devices, their development parallels that of integrated circuits following what is known as Haitz’s Law (a variation of the famous Moore’s Law describing how computer chips get ever smaller yet cheaper and more powerful).

So we have in LED light bulbs a means to right now reduce energy consumption (and hence running costs and environmental damage) to 1/10th the current levels with the promise that this technology could improve 300 hundred fold within a decade. Put another way, where today you might replace a 60w light bulb with a 6w LED, in just 9 years time you could produce the same amount of light using an LED that consumes a mere 0.003w (3/1000th of a watt).

How To Assess Which LED Light Bulbs Are Right For You

So back to your purchasing decision then. CFLs are the easy option and you’ll certainly walk out of the store having spent less. But in terms of what they actually will save you, then as we have seen they simply don’t bear comparison with LEDs. In fact there are many other serious problems with CFLs relating to their poor aesthetic characteristics, disposal issues (they contain small but not insignificant amounts mercury), and production costs (they have a more complicated design).

On all these points, LEDs perform favourably, but the final nail in the coffin for CFLs is not so much that LEDs are already a better technology for producing high quality, low energy light, but Haitz’s Law. A quite literally dazzling future awaits LED lighting, where for CFLs their future is pretty much already behind them since leading lighting manufacturers such as Philips have already declared that they will discontinue research and development into CFL technology, diverting their resources instead towards LED lighting.

So should you be buying LED light bulbs (which are still fairly expensive) to replace existing lighting? Would it make sense to wait for prices to drop and power to increase? The fact is that if you run the maths it turns out that it’s considerably more cost effective to switch to LED at the earliest opportunity, even if you then upgrade again some years down the line to take advantage of subsequent improvements. To put it as simply as possible: any time you can purchase lighting hardware that significantly decreases the running costs you should do so.

An analogy with computers bears this out - if you kept waiting for the price to be “right” you would still not own a computer and would have pretty much missed out on the modern world as most of us now experience it. People expect to have to replace their computers every so often - not because they’re worn out, but simply to take advantage of the latest improvements.

So assuming you’re at least now interested in the possibility of LED lighting, what should you specifically look for to ensure you end up pleased with your purchase?

Checklist For Buying LED Lights

The thing to remember above all else is that at present cheap, low power LEDs are simply not capable of replacing most existing lighting. Budget LEDs are a false economy. Look for more expensive (yes, the prices will make your eyes water a bit) brand name products such as those mentioned above. These will deliver the both fantastic light quality and remarkable cost savings. I repeat, if you try to install LED lighting on the cheap you WILL be disappointed by the result.

Next comes the issue of assessing brightness. We are accustomed to rating light levels according to wattage i.e. 100w very bright, 40-60w comfortable, below 25w getting somewhat dim. This doesn’t work terribly well as a measure for LEDs. At the moment a reasonable estimate is that an LED will produce as the same level of light as a conventional bulb rated at 10 times its power, so for example a 5w LED should be quite sufficient to replace a typical 50w halogen spot lamp. But obviously, this is set to change as Haitz’ Law does its thing.

A better (or at least more direct) way to assess brightness is by luminosity, measured in lumens (for example, a standard 40w bulbs outputs 360 lumens). However, luminosity by itself is not enough to determine how bright a light source actually appears, since both beam angle and light “colour” are also key components to perceived brightness. Light color is graded using the Kelvin temperature scale where 2000k is referred to as “warm white” and values above 4000k are defined as “cool white”.

Up until recently, LEDs have tended to betray their intrinsically highly directional nature with a very narrow beam, and they have also until recently tended to be on the cool side of things, producing a bluish light. This produces a rather harsh effect with small pools of very bright light surrounded by dark spots. Modern high quality LED spotlights however have much wider beam angles (120 degrees fro example) which give a uniform light pool and their light color is also much warmer.

As a general rule then, the wider the beam angle and the warmer the color, the more an LED will emulate traditional incandescent light quality. Contemporary LED spot lights are especially well suited as low energy a stylish kitchen lighting alternative to halogen lamps.

To sum up, check the suitability of any particular LED light bulb for its intended application by checking the packaging (or if buying from a catalogue or online, the product description) for the following items:

• brand name, price and guarantee (plus an estimated lifespan - 50,000+ hours normally)
• luminosity (or equivalent brightness i.e. “same as 60w”)
• light colour temperature (stated as “cool” or “warm” or given in Kelvins - see above)
• beam angle

If there is scant description, then chances are you’re looking at a cheap low quality LED which is probably best avoided (an exception here being outdoor LED lights where low power is not usually a problem, though reliability is still an issue).