subject: Home Lighting Advice And Mood Boards [print this page] Choosing the lighting for your home can be very tricky, especially when it can make such a huge difference to the overall look and feel of your rooms. Here are some tips and advice on how you can light your home more effectively and some shopping techniques.
1. Interior Design Magazines - subscribe to an interior design magazine either online or simply pick up a copy from your local newsagents. These magazines are a great source of information for lighting your home, not just with what ceiling lights to choose but how to dress the room as a whole.
2. Lighting Showrooms - when you think about shopping for lights you automatically go straight for the shelves where all the lighting products are situated. Most lighting shops have showrooms where they demonstrate how a bedroom, or living room, or kitchen can look. Spend some time looking around these lighting showrooms and take notes of what works.
3. Go Online and In store - sometimes it is easier for us to shop online rather than venture out to the shops. Although shopping online has many advantages when it comes to decorating your home with beautiful lighting you will need to do both, visit lighting stores and shop / research online. Shop in store to see the lights up close and personal and research online customer reviews of particular light fixtures and find the best price.
4. Comparison Websites - once you have found your chosen lighting fixture a great way of quickly and easily finding a good deal is to use a comparison website such as Kelkoo. Type in your chosen lighting make and model and it will show many different places to buy the light and the difference in price so you can go directly for the cheapest price.
5. Choose Your Lighting Wisely - when choosing what lighting fixtures to have in your particular room always take the room into consideration. This may sound a little obvious but so many times people buy a lighting fixture that they like the look of in the shop rather than what works best with their room. Think about how big the room is, the colours, the style of the decor, the height of the ceiling, what other furniture you have, and so on.
Home Lighting Mood Boards
If you are remodelling your rooms or have simply decided that you want to change the lighting in your home then the best place to start is to use mood boards. Mood boards are boards of inspiration that are used when decorating a room. They are made up of pictures or photos from magazines or offline of lighting or ceiling lights that you like the look of, colour charts, fabrics, etc. The mood board helps you choose what type of lighting to go for in each room because you can refer back to the board and decide if that particular lamp or ceiling light fits in with the 'mood' and decor.
How to create your very own home lighting mood boards
You will need to create a mood board for each individual room as each room is different in colour, decor, furniture, and style. For example for your bedroom take a white plain board or canvas and start collecting items that you like and that fit together. Go to your local lighting shop and pick up their catalogue, or go online and print off some pictures of lamps, ceiling lights, or wall lights that you like, and stick all the pictures on the board. Whenever you come across a piece of fabric, or colour chart, or picture that you like, stick it on your board to build up the mood board of that room. If you like a particular type of ceiling light but when you add the picture to your mood board it doesn't quite fit then this gives you an indication that it will not fit in reality as well.
Turn your mood board into a room
Once you have built up your mood board and are happy with all the colours, fabrics, lighting options and fixtures, then you can set to work on the actual room. Make a plan to start with of the room and your furniture and lights and place everything out on paper first. That way you have a plan to follow for the actual remodelling of the room. This mood board will always be available for when you purchase new items for that room, for example you may see a lamp that you think would look great in your bedroom. You can simply check the picture against your mood board before you buy saving you time and money.
