While most rooms in our home are designed for very specific tasks - cooking, eating, washing, sleeping - the living room accommodates a wide range of activities, unique to each person.
Depending on the time of day, this is where we entertain friends and family, relax, curl up on a cozy couch with a good book, watch our favorite shows.
This multi-use space needs carefully planned lighting that fits with your daily living habits. From highlighting family photos and artwork on the walls to providing ample light for your children to do their homework.
After having given you some tips for creating a loft atmosphere in your interior , let's explore together the many tips that we have prepared for you, to allow you to master the many levels of lighting that bring life and beautify your living room.
Living room lighting according to use
The first and most important step in lighting a living room is determining how you use the space. This allows you to understand how to multiply light sources. Whether reading or relaxing, configure your lighting to assist you in your activities.
This is called task specific lighting. Take a moment to think about what happens in your living room, what you usually do there.
For many of us, it's about watching TV. TVs emit their own light, so it's important that your lighting doesn't conflict with your TV, causing glare or reflections that distract your vision and hurt your eyes over time.
These reflections can come from various lighting sources, such as lamps without shades or spotlights aimed at the screen. Be sure to position your lighting and TV so that no light shines directly onto the screen.
Focus on indirect lighting
Indirect lighting is a smart way to avoid creating unpleasant reflections on your TV screen and reduce eye strain caused by long exposure to TV screens in rooms that are too dark.
Indirect lighting involves placing lighting behind a TV to increase visibility around the screen, without sending more light directly into the viewer's eyes. This can be done easily with a simple LED strip, ideally with a warm color temperature of 1000K to 2700K at night and 3000K to 5700K.
This helps bring more ambient light into the room while allowing your eyes to adjust to the bright screen as well as the dark room around it. This type of lighting gives a serene atmosphere to your living room. Far from distracting from what's on the screen, indirect lighting makes the images on the screen richer.
Essential lighting to encourage pleasant reading
When it comes to reading lights, table lamps and floor lamps with diffuse light don't provide the focused light you really need.
Desk lamps or standing reading lamps are best: their bright, focused light reduces squinting and eye strain, emphasizing the words on the page rather than the space around you.
On this type of lamp, a simple rotation of the arm or a pivot of the lamp head can adapt to your reading session, whether you are sitting or lying down. This lamp also easily adapts to children's coloring moments at the kitchen or living room table.
Which luminaires to provide functional lighting or directional lighting?
After having broadly defined the general lighting for the main activities in the living room, the next step is to choose functional lighting. Functional lighting highlights the artwork and architectural elements located in your interior.
Whether you're designing your living room from scratch or planning a major renovation, adjustable recessed lighting offers a wide variety of solutions. But there are a few rules to follow: make sure to install your recessed ceiling lighting at an angle of 30° which is optimal for illuminating these areas.
To highlight a textured or architectural wall, consider appropriate lighting that will make the shadows and patterns become works of art in themselves.
Shadows aren't always a bad thing, they can be attractive when you're looking for a dramatic visual effect.
If you're using directional lighting on a sculpture or plant, consider spotlights or recessed floor lights.
As with all recessed lighting, floor spotlights maximize space while providing the perfect dose of lighting and decoration.
Choosing the right ambient lighting for the dining room and living room
Once you've determined your direct and indirect lighting, the final step is to add general mood lighting to fill in any gaps and create ambiance. This can be done in different ways.
Recessed ceiling spotlights are a great choice, if you are able to install them. Avoid simply covering the ceiling with a series of recessed spotlights in a uniform pattern.
Instead of wanting to crisscross your ceiling with spotlights, focus on what you want to see, on what is important in your space.
- Is this a work of art?
- A texture wall? An architectural element?
- A vase on top of a dining table?
- A work plan?
Once you have thought about this carefully, you can define the location of the ceiling spotlights avoiding beginner mistakes.
In a home, the centerpiece of the majority of living rooms is a pendant light, a ceiling light or a chandelier. There is a very wide variety of models and textures like the trendy Vertigo lighting from Petite Friture. Making your selection will take time but it's worth it!
Remember that the primary function of a chandelier is to add style and create a unique ambiance, and that it is not always an effective alternative to recessed ceiling lights, track lighting and monorails.
