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Lighting
Lighting serves more than one purpose in a room. In addition to helping people see, it also contributes to the mood of a room. Imagine, for example, the difference between a room softly illuminated with candlelight compared to a room lit up with bright spotlights. Sunlight can be used to illuminate a room, but it is difficult to control. While natural daylight can be included in your decorating project, you may also be concerned with three types of artificial lighting.
General Lighting
Also known as ambient lighting, general lighting is indirect lighting that brightens an entire room. It can be provided by lights mounted on the wall or ceiling or by large lamps. Your choices for general lighting range from chandeliers to track lights to floor lamps or large table lamps.
Task Lighting
Task lighting is direct lighting that provides enough illumination for people to carry out specific tasks such as reading, studying, or working. It is focused in the direction of where the task will be carried out. It is often provided by small lamps, but can also be provided by other types of lighting such as track lighting.
Accent Lighting
If there is something interesting in the room that you want people to notice – such as a work of art – you can draw attention to it with accent lighting. Accent lighting involves focusing three times as much light on the object as the area around it. The lighting can be provided by spot lights or other lights that will illuminate it sufficiently.
Color and Light
It is important to know how lighting in a room can affect the colors. Homestore, Inc. provides the following excellent insight into how light works with color in a room: Thanks to light, we see color. The science of color and light is not that simple, of course, but a basic understanding of how light influences color can help you make wise color and lighting choices.
Most light in your home is artificial, and the color of that light varies. Warm light from incandescent bulbs intensifies yellows and reds but dulls the cooler colors. Halogen bulbs, a special category of incandescents, produce a whiter, brighter light. The cool blue light of standard fluorescent bulbs amplifies blues and greens but muddies warm yellows and reds. Newer "soft white" fluorescents come closer to the warmth of incandescents. Light fixtures themselves contribute color to a room. Pendant lights can have brightly colored glass. A warm-hued lamp shade will cast its own glow, influencing other colors and helping to set a mood. Be aware, however, that strongly colored lamp shades tend to soak up the light. White or cream shades have become classic because they yield maximum light.
A room's exposure determines the quality of its natural light, which can influence your color choices. North-facing rooms receive less direct sunlight, and that light tends to be cool, while south-facing rooms get inherently warmer light. The conventional wisdom is to balance the temperature in a room, using warm colors in north-facing rooms and cool colors in south-facing ones. You are free to ignore that advice, of course, and enhance the natural temperature of a room with colors of a similar temperature. The way materials and surfaces reflect light also affects color. A shiny red lacquer table will reflect light and appear brighter, while the same red rendered in a heavily textured fabric will be comparatively dull.