How to Plan Lighting

Use screens and curtains to control natural light. The type of light with the largest impact on a room's ambiance is the one you have no control over -- daylight. To maximize daylight in a room that gets very little of it, keep the windows free from curtains, privacy screens and clutter. If the window has blinds, pull them up high. If, on the other hand, you think that daylight makes the room too bright, curtains and sheer white privacy screens over the windows will help temper daylight into a softer light.

Identify the spots in the room that need "task" lighting -- lighting required to perform a specific activity such as a lamp next to a chair where people will sit and read. Put a task light there that, first and foremost, serves the function well. If you need a reading lamp, for example, look for a lamp that casts direct, unfiltered light that can be pointed directly onto the chair. Avoid lamps with heavy shades or small table lamps -- these are chosen for style and background, not for their ability to provide functional reading light.

Place daylight-spectrum (blue-spectrum) lightbulbs in the task lamps. These provide the best light for reading and doing detail-oriented work. Place red-spectrum lightbulbs in the ambiance and background lighting.

Place many small lights around a large room, which provides more depth and accents than trying to illuminate a large room with one very bright overhead light. This is particularly important if you have high ceilings. One or two very bright lights will create harsh "glare" on glass objects and picture frames, while a multitude of small lights in different corners of the room will create a softer ambiance.

Place your lighting at various heights. A good mix of floor lamps, table lamps, wall-mounted lights and ceiling-mounted lights will provide good contrast with one another and will come together as a nice medley of light sources. Too many of one type of light (too many floor lamps, for example) will illuminate only one part of the room and create strange shadows in other parts of the room.

Position your lights to point in various directions. Some lights should point directly onto the wall, while others should point to the middle of the room. Look for lamps that allow you to swivel the lamp head so that you may decide where it points. Alternatively, purchase a variety of lamps that are designed to point in different directions -- some lamps are designed like a bowl, with the light facing up onto the ceiling, while others are designed like an upside-down bowl, with light pointing toward the floor.