Transform your home with accent lighting
There are lots of different styles of lighting for the home. These different styles take care of different situations, serving a practical function, as well as potentially offering a nice stylistic touch.
One kind of lighting which a home simply can’t go without is accent lighting. This is the kind of lighting which will really raise the look of any room in your home to the next level. Accent lighting takes what you already have going in a room, and does its bit to highlight the key points of interest, thus drawing the eye and emphasising an overall shape to your layout.
What is accent lighting?
Accent lights will be highly concentrated directional lights which act as a means of creating a focal point. As they will cut through the ambient lighting, they can be put to use in order to build up some spacial distinction in a room. Rather than the space all blurring into one, accent lighting is there to arrange the room. You will have already thought about how best to setup everything with your interior design; accent lighting simply brings the values of those interior design choices to the fore.
They can be used to highlight specific areas whilst leaving other areas in the shadows. This is especially handy if you have any pieces of artwork for example. The focused light source will draw attention to pieces of art on the walls, and in general create a distinguished feel to the room.
The combination of the brightness and focus of the light and the darkness of the shaded area outside of focus will give any room a sense of depth and shape. Rather than your lighting being rather flat and one-dimensional, accent lighting adds detail and interest to the visual makeup of a room.
Examples of accent lighting
Accent lights are meant to be brighter than the ambient lighting. In the dining room, say, the main light above your dining table will set your ambient light level. Then, around the edges of the room, wall-mounted fixtures, such as sconces, can be used to create the accent lighting which cuts through the ambient light. As such, you should aim to have the accent lighting by roughly 3 to 5 times brighter than the ambient lighting.
As well as sconces being a good example of how to set up some accent lighting, you might also want to consider how table and floor lamps could be brought into play for the same purpose. Whether you go for downlighters or uplighters, these forms of accent lighting will have the same effect of creating some visual texture in a room.
You can also use accent lighting on your bookshelves. Whether by attaching your lighting to one of the shelves, or having the light focus down from the ceiling, this would be a great way of making the most of the aesthetic qualities of your rows of books. Furthermore, you shouldn’t think that accent lighting is just for the indoors. They can also be used in a garden space so that in the evenings you can create an atmosphere and highlight prominent features.
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