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Top Interior Lighting Tips Using Candles And Lamps

As an interior designer, I love to create the right atmosphere through colour schemes, textures, lighting and space. The major parts of creating the right room for a client come down to clever decorating and furnishing, but it is often the smallest details that truly give the right feel, imbibing the room with a personality and making it unique. My favourite thing to play with is the lighting, and I would like to share my tips and tricks using candles and lamps to help you create the perfect atmosphere for your room.

Using lighting to set the feel of a room is an art in itself. There are so many types of lighting available to use, each giving a different level of warmth and illumination. The positioning is also very important, balancing practicality with what is often referred to as mood lighting. As a general rule of thumb, choose the warmth of a proper incandescent bulb for an intimate feel. These bulbs give off a yellowish hue and can be purchased in a variety of watts, so even if you need a space to be well lit, you can theoretically have the same warmth of light as given by a candle. For office areas or for crafts and hobbies, a halogen bulb gives a clear and clean light which helps avoid eye strain. In rooms that have a practical purpose such as a kitchen, bathroom or workshop, a strip light gives a good even light and lasts up to ten times longer than regular bulb.

The lighting rules are generally that a room should be lit on three levels, high, medium and low. Use up lighting floor lamps or wall lamps for high levels; ceiling pendants and trailing light for mid level lighting, and achieve low level lighting from lamps , spotlights and down lighting lamps. Dining areas are best lit by a central and low large shaded light over the centre of the table. This creates a conversational atmosphere and draws the attention to the focal point, the feast. Keep the rest of the lights in the room to a minimum, featuring no more than low watt low level lighting. An exception to this is creating a lighting feature. Fairy lights entwined around ornamental willow in a vase can brighten up a dark corner without intruding on the atmosphere of the table. Alternatively use candles to create extra illumination.

For living room areas, I recommend that each corner is lit by a different type of light according to the purpose. Using down lighting, have a dual headed reading lamp in the corner where there is a comfy chair or chaise longue; have a full length evenly lit lamp in an adjacent corner that will illuminate the room evenly, creating an ambient light conducive to relaxing. Finally, make sure that there is a source of light behind the television, this helps when looking at the screen, and can be utilised in home office areas too; but importantly keeps a good light balance when the television is not on. A TV area without back lighting can often look like a black hole once it is switched off.

My final tip is to use as much real flame as possible to add some extra atmosphere. Candles are versatile and can be dotted all over the place to add some sensuality to a room. Candles are also an ideal way to get rid of unwanted smells that can linger after dinner, or a wet walk. Use church style candles for large open mantle pieces, or invest in some tea lights or floating candles if you prefer a more romantic spattering of light. Place these in clusters, once again on all levels to achieve an atmosphere that is truly relaxing.

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