Indoor Lighting

When it comes to furnishing a home, homeowners often forget that the lighting they choose is in fact an integral part of their overall decoration. Designed to add warmth and functional light, as well as decorative styling in its most basic form, indoor lighting comes in all manner of styles and sizes – from ceiling lights to table lamps, wall lights and strip lights – with each adding its own style and depth to the appearance of a room.

For the most traditional of homes, lighting adds a grandeur and opulence which is intended to create welcoming and warm spaces in which to sit or work, often using floor or table lamps as well as wall lights and ceiling lights. Some of the most traditional indoor lights ooze grandeur with very detailed and intricately designed lampshades, while modern indoor lights tend to be extremely minimalist in design and very simplistic in their overall appearance.

But how does that affect their functionality and the way they optimise on a specific design style?

Traditional lights

Traditional indoor lights are often designed to give your home more of a classic and antique feel, with many of the common indoor lights from the early 1900’s playing on very intricate styles and designs across table lamps and wall lights in particular. When it comes to the bulb itself, traditional lights tend to be fitted with duller coloured lights which give off more of a yellow glow, and while more modern and brighter bulbs can be added to these lights, we tend to see homeowners harnessing the antique appearance of more traditional lights as much for their decorative value as for their functional ability to provide light.

Buyers should take note that traditional lights tend to come equipped with wires and cords and need plugging in, meaning that table lamps and floor lamps in particular should be ideally located close to a plug point to keep the wires as concealed as possible.

Modern lights

When we talk about modern indoor lighting, the range of options widens significantly – encompassing everything from hidden bulbs fitted into ceilings, to spotlights, ceiling and wall lights, strip lights and even floor lights. Lighting a modern home requires a complex combination of functional and minimal designs, taking everything a modern home needs and spinning it on its head to find new ways of showcasing it without adding clutter to a room. As such, we find that most of the modern lighting options are now extremely simple in their appearance, with many able to be built into a structure for the least obvious look.

Modern lighting tends to also reflect a much brighter and whiter light, though that’s not to say that buyers can’t find duller bulbs if they want to. There is also an increase on the market for coloured indoor lights in modern homes, with many homeowners investing in indoor lights with interchangeable colours and additional features – such as flashing bulbs and dimming qualities.

Things to consider when buying indoor lights

The primary thing you need to consider when looking for indoor lights, is how much light you need to create in a space and how many sources of light you ideally need to maximise the light gained. It’s all very well to choose a dull ceiling light for its aesthetic value, but if it doesn’t provide the functionality at the same time, it likely isn’t any use as a standalone light.

Foe the widest range of indoor lights which match both traditional and modern home styles, head to specialist lighting retailers and homeware designers, who can turn all your lighting needs into something stylish and functional for the home.