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The Ugly Overhead Light Has to Go: Your Guide to Better Home Lighting · Seated with Furniture Row

0:01
Hi, and welcome to the Seated podcast with Furniture Row.
0:04
I'm Jessa, creative director and design extraordinaire, and I'm.
0:08
Barb, interior designer and buyer.
0:10
Hello, everyone, and welcome. Welcome back.
0:15
Today we're talking about lighting.
0:19
So important. You have to have the lights on.
0:21
You got to see someone that you're talking to.
0:24
You need it to do things. You know, if you're you're
0:27
cutting up snacks in the kitchen, you can't do that
0:30
without a light. But I think it's one of those
0:31
things that we underestimate as being important and confusing.
0:36
It's both confusing and important and we need to know
0:41
which lights to choose for which space and how to choose them,
0:44
and not spend so much time researching and being in the
0:49
hardware store. Agreed, it's confusing.
0:52
It is confusing. And especially if you're setting
0:54
up a new space in your house, whether you're renting or you're
0:58
remodeling a home, like that last little detail is like, I am
1:03
confused and it's difficult. So let's get into it.
1:08
I have a little in or out question session for you about
1:13
lighting to get us warmed up. I think yeah, it's going to be
1:18
fun. So in or in or out.
1:20
Barb Edison Bulbs. Out.
1:24
Oh, a controversial. Just my opinion.
1:29
Track lighting. It depends, but in a home, I'm
1:33
going to say out. OK, Bank lights.
1:40
It depends on what the use is for.
1:42
OK. Good work.
1:44
Colored lighting. Like on a Christmas tree.
1:49
Anywhere. I mean if it's like holiday
1:53
lighting, I I like the colored lights like little gum.
1:56
Drops all around year lighting, colored lighting.
2:01
You know what, maybe it works for the dopamine decor that
2:05
we're talking about, so I'm not going to say it's out or in.
2:09
Yeah, it's very personal to be specific with it.
2:12
Yeah, I think, yeah, Yeah. Well, it's a huge decor factor,
2:18
lighting. And I mean, some people don't
2:21
know why they're in a bad mood in their space.
2:26
And a lot of times I do think it's attributed to the lighting.
2:29
Like if you have an obnoxious big light in your room and it is
2:34
just taking over the vibe, like it's too cool or it's too warm
2:40
and it's ugly and it's offensive, you know you got it
2:45
could affect. Your mood maybe even give you a
2:46
headache. I yeah like think about
2:48
fluorescent lighting. I am not a fan of the big
2:51
lights. I feel the vibe of every light
2:53
and I am just the big lights. Sometimes if they are not done
2:57
tastefully, it ruins the vibe of A room.
3:01
It does. Now I know what you mean by big
3:03
light, but maybe our audience doesn't.
3:06
So explain to them what your definition of big light is.
3:09
Yeah, it's like the overall lighting in the room when you
3:13
just like, turn on the. Switch the.
3:17
Switch the first time and you haven't set anything up in in
3:21
the room, whether it's lamps or what have you, and it's just
3:23
whatever light is included in the house.
3:26
The overhead light. The overhead light.
3:29
Sometimes it's done tastefully between the type of overhead
3:34
light that is chosen and the temperature, but other times
3:39
it's not and people just slap whatever fixtures up there with
3:43
whatever color tone in your house.
3:45
Just looks like a cold prison, you know?
3:50
Or a warm old musty dungeon. I don't know it just it.
3:56
You are, you have feelings towards this, don't you it?
3:59
Ruins it, sucks the life out. It really does, and especially
4:04
like at night when just the I call them the ugly life.
4:08
The ugly life. Yeah, You walk in the room, turn
4:10
on the switch, and it's just this ugly light.
4:12
Yeah, yeah, I hate it. Like.
4:15
It's like jarring and offensive. And totally, especially the
4:19
biggest faux pas for me with the big light is if it's on during
4:22
the day, especially when it's not needed.
4:26
Like if you were in the kitchen and it is daytime and there's
4:29
beautiful natural light streaming in through the windows
4:33
and either your curtains are closed or they're open but you
4:37
have the big light on. No, no.
4:40
See now I big light, ugly light. OK, so I'm talking ugly light.
4:46
Ugly light, yes. But like, if it's my chandelier
4:49
in my dining room or in my breakfast nook, I'm fine turning
4:53
that on. I like the look of that, but not
4:55
always. I don't always have to turn that
4:57
on, but I don't have a problem with it because.
4:59
Right. But if you have a really pretty
5:00
chandelier that disperses the light well and it's like you
5:04
chose the right bulb so it matches the tone of the room,
5:09
whether it's day or night, I could get behind that, you know,
5:13
or tasteful pendant lighting in a kitchen or tasteful recessed
5:18
lighting. The can lights I can be a huge
5:21
fan of. Yeah, yeah, the ugly light.
5:24
No. No, it ruins Serenity.
5:27
Yeah, I agree. The ugly light is not good.
5:30
The ugly big light, it ruins the party.
5:32
It's a party pooper is what it is.
5:36
But so we should talk about. We're not just here to complain,
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we're here to offer solutions. And what is the solution to the
5:43
big light? To take it down.
5:47
Yeah, just like. Move it.
5:49
Down the ugly light so it's never in danger of ruining your
5:54
space again. But also layered lighting.
5:57
You can replace it with layered lighting.
5:59
Yeah, you could do a little task light.
6:02
You can do the accent light and that helps too.
6:05
Yeah, so let's break it down. Like what goes into layered
6:08
lighting? What is layered lighting?
6:11
So like your ambient lighting, like your chandelier, your can
6:14
lights your Yeah, that would be your first layer and then your
6:20
task lighting. So lights that would be under
6:24
your kitchen cabinets. So it's nice.
6:26
So like if you're working, preparing food in the kitchen,
6:29
you can turn those on. Or if you just need a little
6:31
light at night and you don't want to turn the big bigger
6:34
lights on, they're still nice lights, but bigger lights, you
6:37
just turn those on and then your accent lights.
6:43
So those are things for artwork, like you were saying about your
6:46
dad likes his little up light for his plant.
6:50
Anything that enhances an architectural element.
6:53
So that's some layered lighting for you.
6:55
Yeah, my dad has an olive tree or I, I think he still has it,
7:00
but growing up he had an olive tree too, and it was in the
7:03
corner of our living room and it had the up light on it to really
7:07
just enhance the Tuscan vibe in there and really highlight the
7:12
plant in that room, which can be done.
7:14
We've already talked about that in an outdoor episode about
7:19
putting up light against elements in your yard or plants
7:22
in your yard so you could do the same thing indoors.
7:25
Yeah, I like that idea that your dad did because at night I bet
7:29
it, you know, had a little shadowing and dapple lighting on
7:32
the wall, which is so nice at night.
7:34
It was very just a great mood in there, you know, it's a very
7:40
relaxing living room mood. He's a tourist, so he's all
7:45
about how things look and the beauty of things in.
7:48
Life. That's probably where you get
7:50
your design. Maybe so background from Maybe
7:53
so yeah, just my dad's commitment to the vibe.
7:57
Always so very nice. Enjoying the beauty of life.
8:02
So yeah, I mean, aside from mixing those layers of light in
8:09
your room, you know, just having a mixture of ambient task
8:14
lighting and accent lighting, you got to choose the right
8:19
bulbs and that is where life gets confusing.
8:24
It gets confusing for sure, and I feel like at one time there
8:27
weren't as many choices out there, and now there's
8:31
everything plus like a light bulb that is battery operated.
8:36
Yeah, I mean, it's insane. Where do we even start?
8:40
I mean, OK, so there's the standard ink.
8:43
We start at Home Depot. We start at Home Depot for the
8:46
hardware store. Sometimes you just gotta go and
8:48
acclimate yourself to what's out there.
8:50
Yeah. So let's bring up that visual of
8:54
actually the different types of light.
8:56
There you go. Yeah.
8:57
So we want to know all the different types of light that
9:01
are out there. We have our traditional
9:04
incandescents, which is what used to always be used, and then
9:08
we started trying to get a little bit more energy
9:10
efficient. With the LED.
9:12
With the LE DS. And those weren't quite right at
9:15
first. Yeah, they.
9:16
Weren't Yeah, they're getting. They're a lot better now.
9:19
Yeah, they weren't. They didn't have all the color
9:21
options or the range I feel like and the the aesthetics that an
9:26
incandescent did. So you know, and they also as an
9:31
energy efficient alternative developed halogen lightings or
9:36
lighting, which was just like an enhanced version of incandescent
9:40
to make it a little bit more energy efficient.
9:42
And then ACFL which is a compact fluorescent light, yes.
9:48
I broke on many of those. Yeah, so those were all a little
9:53
bit more energy efficient alternatives, but I feel like
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most of what I see these days in stores is LEDs now 'cause
10:03
they're just so like they're everywhere, tuned in and energy
10:07
efficient. It's hard to find an
10:09
incandescent anymore in my opinion, or at least that's what
10:14
my landlord said so. I would agree with that, unless
10:18
maybe you go to some sort of lighting store that has a
10:22
million light bulb options. Right, right.
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Yeah. So, but within, you know, any of
10:29
those lighting options, there's some things to pay attention to
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between brightness and temperature.
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So let's start with temperature. In a lot of hardware stores now,
10:41
they'll have helpful guides like I was just at Home Depot the
10:44
other day. And in this video you can see
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they have a little switch that you can go back and forth to see
10:53
what different levels of Kelvin's look like and and how
11:01
it changes the warmness and coolness.
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So Kelvins. Are really helpful.
11:06
Yeah, it totally. Is because nobody like who's
11:09
Calvin? You know, we don't know.
11:14
So yeah, I, I think it's important to understand just
11:19
generally what a Kelvin is. It's basically the warmness of
11:23
the light bulb and the temperature, the temperature of
11:26
the light bulb. And as far as visual
11:29
temperature, not like how hot it actually is exactly, but the
11:34
lower the number, the warmer toned the light is going to be
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is all you have to remember. And just like yeah, middle of
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the line is going to be around like 3004 thousand, but lower,
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like really warm tone is going to be around 2000 or so and then
12:01
candlelight is like 1000 so. I like your little thermometer.
12:05
Yeah, that was great. Yeah, I thought it would be
12:08
helpful. It was fun to design.
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It was like a popsicle. Yeah, it looks like 1.
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Yeah. So yeah, you got to consider
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what kind of warmness or coolness you want in every room.
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You know, like. Depending on which room you're
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selecting light bulbs or lamps for.
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In our recent productivity episode, we were talking about
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how cooler tone lights can be good for more productive spaces,
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while warmer toned lights can be good for more relaxing spaces.
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So like. Bedrooms and living rooms where
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you're brighter would be your kitchen or an office.
12:47
Yeah, exactly. Or you're cooler.
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And then the other thing to consider is your amount of
12:58
brightness that is being released.
13:01
Oh, and we just wanted to check ourselves to make sure that we
13:09
were correct before I said middle of the road for the
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coolness or warmness was around 3 or 4000.
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And yeah, that's pretty neutral leaning.
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Warm 3035 hundreds, like a true white.
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Once you get to 4000, you start to get a little cool.
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So like the 5000, if you're, you know, putting a lamp and a desk
13:35
lamp for an office, I'd probably go 5000 so higher.
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So it's really. Deluxe.
13:41
Yeah. So it's bright, yeah.
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So it's nice and bright. Bright and cool and energizing,
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but then you'd want to kind of like decorate the room to kind
13:51
of complement that cool tone lighting so that there's enough
13:55
in there so it doesn't feel cold in the room.
14:00
Yeah. And then soft white is like
14:02
2700. Yeah.
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But so moving on from the temperature, getting into the
14:12
amount of brightness that's being put off by the light bulb,
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watts, I feel like we've seen a lot, especially with
14:21
incandescence to describe how bright a bulb is.
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But in truth, watts are the amount of energy a light puts
14:29
out, whereas lumens are the brightness.
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And the reason why we leaned on watts so much to know the
14:35
brightness in the past was because in incandescent bulbs,
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the amount of energy that's being put out really correlates
14:43
to how bright it is, whereas that's not really true in LEDs.
14:48
So like a middle of the road brightness in lumens would be
14:54
800, which would be your typical 60 Watt bulb.
15:01
But if you are working with an LED, you could have a 10 Watt
15:05
LED bulb because it's so energy efficient and it's putting out
15:11
800 to 1000 lumens. So it can really, you know,
15:18
change things. And I have a little watts to
15:21
lumens CHEAT SHEET to kind of know, you know, if you are
15:26
looking at a. 75 little CHEAT SHEET for everyone.
15:29
Yeah, if you're looking at a 75 Watt bulb, it's going to put out
15:34
about 1100 lumens, you know. But also again, back to the
15:39
hardware store, they as part of that little display, they had a
15:43
switch where you could switch between different wattages and
15:46
see how it affected the brightness of the bulb.
15:49
So to make sure that you were selecting the right bulb for
15:55
what you wanted as far as brightness.
15:59
So yeah, I think I gave an example on the on one of the
16:04
light bulb packages I saw. Yeah.
16:09
See, that's an LED bulb that puts out 1000 lumens even though
16:14
it's 10 watts. And Home Depot said both a 60
16:18
Watt incandescent lamp and a 10 Watt LED light produce about 800
16:23
lumens. So it's not necessarily about
16:26
how much energy is being put out anymore.
16:29
It's just you're looking for the brightness and lens.
16:31
Yeah. Especially with LE DS and now
16:35
with LE DS, there are so many different options out there.
16:39
They're not just like like we were saying, they're not just
16:42
the old timey LED light. Like I picture LED light and
16:49
it's really standard. But now they have really fancy
16:52
Edison looking bulbs and just so many.
16:57
Home Depot, yeah, they do so many.
17:00
So many bulb options out there that are really style driven and
17:05
for me, I know you said Edison bulbs are out and I some would
17:09
agree that like we don't want to go all industrial.
17:12
Home Depot. All the time.
17:14
But there are so many lamps and standing lights and lighting
17:19
options out there now that the bulb is either exposed or
17:22
there's a glass shade on the lamp.
17:27
And so you need to have an aesthetically pleasing bulb.
17:31
And so that's where I go toward Edison's.
17:33
I agree with. You know there are a lot of.
17:37
Yeah. Light fixtures that show, I
17:39
think one of our light fixtures just went out.
17:41
But yeah, yeah, I, I'm not a big fan anymore of those glass
17:48
fixtures where you're seeing the light bulb with all, I'm not
17:52
saying every light fixture, but the glass because it's just, you
17:55
know, they get dirty and you, they're constant cleanup
17:59
maintenance. So I'm not a big fan of those.
18:03
I used to like them. I used to like that style, but I
18:05
think there's other things coming coming on board.
18:08
Yeah, and maybe it could just be done in a more artful way.
18:12
I guess I like it because if you have lampshades, they can hold
18:18
dust. Yeah, that's true.
18:22
Yeah, and I don't, I don't like dust.
18:25
No SO. And if it's a glass lampshade,
18:29
you can see if it's dusty and like clean it.
18:32
Yes. OK.
18:32
The other thing is you can get glass lampshades that have an
18:37
amber tone to them. And I mean, some of the light
18:41
bulbs we were seeing even in the Home Depot video, they were
18:44
amber colored glass light bulbs, which really affects the
18:52
warmness of them and, and the type of light that they're
18:55
putting off in the room. Were those the LED bulbs that
18:57
were Edison lamps? Yeah, but maybe that's why it
19:00
was the glass was colored to look like an Edison.
19:04
Ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were.
19:06
It's a little vintage looking, but it also makes the color like
19:10
just a little bit more warm and cozy in the room.
19:13
But for my office, I got a standing lamp that has a glass
19:19
shade, but it's amber colored so it's warmer in there.
19:22
And it's not just like blaring light, it's like a softer.
19:26
The actual floor lamp fixture. Yeah, the the shade is amber
19:33
colored. Glass thing.
19:35
And a black stand, so that really warms things up,
19:39
especially during the day because sometimes if it gets
19:45
cloudy, I don't want to like pretend like it's night time
19:48
because it's still day and I want to enjoy that it's day, but
19:51
I just need a little extra. You don't want to trick
19:53
yourself. Yeah, exactly.
19:54
I just need a little bit of accent light to the daylight.
19:59
So, yeah, but now that we kind of identified all of that
20:04
lighting terminology, if anybody needs to go back to it.
20:10
We have a great blog post that we will link in the show notes
20:14
of this episode that really goes over some of these, you know,
20:19
Lumens and Calvin's and infographics that are easy to
20:25
just reference quickly and puts everything into quick layman's
20:28
terms so you don't have to be. Yeah.
20:29
That's so helpful. Scratching your head all day
20:31
about lighting, yeah. So which rooms, in your opinion,
20:38
should never have a cool light and which rooms should never
20:41
have a warm light? That's a good question.
20:47
I would say the kitchen should not be a warm light.
20:52
That should be a little bit cooler, so it's a little
20:54
brighter. Like we're getting things done
20:57
in here. Yeah, same with like an office,
21:02
just a little brighter in there, you know.
21:05
And then as far as like a bedroom, living room, definitely
21:09
a warmer light. So I would not do a cool light
21:13
or lamp light bulb. Some people call it a lamp, some
21:18
people call it a light bulb. I would not do cool in the
21:21
bedroom. Or you want a relaping.
21:23
Yeah, or the dining room. I feel like the dining room
21:26
needs to have just this nice cozy feel in.
21:29
It too, exactly. Garage Garage could be a cool
21:33
light. That's true, yeah.
21:34
Work's getting done in there, too.
21:36
Anywhere where work is getting done and we need to be like
21:39
focused on details. Cool lights and especially like
21:44
alertness, like in the kitchen, you're working with knives.
21:47
You know in the office you're trying to be a good employee and
21:51
not sleep, right? You're trying to stay awake and
21:54
alert. That's right.
21:56
So keep it cool in there. Keep it cool.
21:58
You know, the one that is is hard for me is the outside
22:03
light, like your front porch or like, sometimes neighbors have
22:07
those motion sensor lights and they're so bright.
22:12
Yeah, obviously because I want to see stuff.
22:14
But for everybody else, it's awful because the light, like,
22:17
shines through your window. So I'd like to see some change
22:21
happen with our exterior lighting.
22:23
Yeah. How do we make that still bright
22:26
enough where you can see what you're doing, but not so bright
22:30
it's like? Why?
22:31
Is everybody just discounted exteriors lately?
22:34
As far as lighting, I feel like a lot of them are city lights,
22:38
But even like private businesses, if there's like a
22:41
floodlight to prevent people creeping around your building or
22:45
whatever, they're just ugly. It is ugly.
22:49
It is light pollution for the neighbors of those buildings.
22:52
Like I have to have blackout curtains because the building
22:56
next to our house has floodlights.
22:57
So it's so ugly. And I wish for times where there
23:01
were those like gas lamps in the street, you know?
23:05
Can we just? Go back to that.
23:06
That would be so nice. I know a lot of neighborhoods.
23:10
There's one in Richmond that it's all.
23:12
Virginia. Yeah, Richard, sorry about that.
23:14
Yeah, Richmond, VA, That it's all like gas lamps outside, like
23:19
their exterior. Yeah, it's so pretty.
23:21
I love that look. You can buy light bulbs that
23:25
feel or or visually feel that way.
23:28
It's not exact, but it gives you that look without.
23:34
It's not exactly that look, but it helps.
23:36
You know what, if we were focused on city and world
23:42
domination, Barb, we would be getting grants for cities.
23:47
To put everything. Better, better lighting in their
23:50
public fixtures. Yeah, that's what we would do.
23:53
Maybe we should encourage people to write in and ask for better
23:57
lighting. All you can do in life is ask,
23:59
you know, Let's ask our cities for better lighting.
24:02
I agree. And then like for neighborhoods,
24:05
I mean, if you live in an HOA, which a lot of people do, I do,
24:09
it's not my favorite thing to have an HOA.
24:10
But if they're going to make rules, they should make rules
24:14
about these floodlights, yes. Like they should not be allowed
24:17
to have these floodlights that, you know, flood into the
24:21
neighbors. Like it's not good.
24:24
It's not good. And then your whole house lights
24:26
up at night, even even through the shutters, like it seems to
24:29
come through the shutters and it's just, it's awful.
24:32
It is light pollution. So if you all have floodlights,
24:36
think about your neighbors. We could be making an argument
24:40
about, you know, wildlife and migration patterns and how the
24:44
lights are ruining that's migration patterns or something
24:49
like that. Maybe that's how we get through
24:51
to the city. Well, I will tell you, talking
24:54
about wildlife, my one neighbor that had well, I have two
24:56
neighbors, they both have floodlights, so I don't even
24:58
need floodlights. Yeah, which I wouldn't put them
25:01
on my house anyway, but we do have these neighborhood
25:06
raccoons. So my neighbor has this
25:08
floodlight because the raccoons would get on the fence and like
25:13
traps across the fence and. Suddenly it's like a raccoon
25:16
show. Yeah, exactly.
25:18
So maybe those and I haven't, I haven't really seen those
25:21
raccoons much lately. So maybe the floodlight like
25:25
drove them away. Yeah, we don't get to see the
25:29
Raccoon show. I know.
25:31
Let the raccoons live and be free.
25:35
Yeah, well, yeah, sad thing about those raccoons.
25:40
What did? You.
25:42
We digress. But what?
25:43
Kind of not diverse. We diverse.
25:46
I think we should diverse with our lives, yeah.
25:49
Absolutely. What would you do?
25:52
Like, OK, so let's breakdown each room and talk about like
25:56
what kind of, because I think the idea of layered lighting is
25:59
still a little bit intimidating for people.
26:01
Why do you think that is? Because they don't know like
26:04
what to put in every room and how expensive it's going to be.
26:07
And like, what is an example of like a good, you know, task
26:14
light in a specific room? And let's just break it down for
26:18
people, you know, so it's less intimidating, so.
26:21
I would I would first say to the people, to the people, to the
26:25
people. If you have the big ugly light
26:30
in your room, either take it down and put something else up
26:33
there that looks better. Take it down.
26:36
But if you're not going to take it down and put something else
26:38
that's nice and that's the only light in your room, then we have
26:42
to do some layered lighting, right?
26:44
Something. By ambient lighting, take it
26:47
down and put something better, like you could put a chandelier
26:50
in in place of whatever. On a dimmer switch.
26:54
Gave you on a dimmer switch? That's another great idea.
26:57
Yes, and that would immediately help the room.
27:00
Because then you can have brighter light from when you
27:03
need it, like if you're in your kitchen or your living room
27:06
crafting and you need it brighter, you can have the
27:10
lights be brighter. But if you want to just relax
27:13
and movie and get cozy, turn it down.
27:16
Yeah, I think the dimmer was the best.
27:19
Well, other than the light bulb. Other than.
27:21
Slice bread. Slice, other than all the other
27:25
extensions out there, but one of the great inventions was the
27:30
dimmer switch. I love a dimmer switch on
27:32
everything I put it. There's one in my kitchen.
27:35
There's, I mean, they're everywhere in my house.
27:37
I love dimmer switches to city lights.
27:40
To everything. Yeah, everything looks better
27:43
when you have a dimmer. Switch, a design focused
27:46
invention. That's what that was designed
27:48
for the people. I know.
27:50
And they're so simple. They're it's not a hard thing.
27:52
You don't even have to go to too much trouble to put a dimmer
27:56
switch on. Yeah, yeah.
27:58
Cool. Well, so that's great.
28:00
So if you can just at least tackle the ambient lighting in
28:04
your space, like it in a living room for example, switch that
28:07
overhead light that's just builder grade to a chandelier
28:14
and pick out some light bulbs that really fit your vibe of
28:19
that room. Well, here's what.
28:20
OK, so everybody has different ceiling heights in their home.
28:24
OK, Yeah. So let's say you do not have
28:28
high ceilings in your living living room or dining room,
28:31
whatever. And you have that ugly like it,
28:35
it almost looks like it's screwed onto the ceiling.
28:38
It just, it's a hideous light. Yeah, You could easily remove
28:43
that and put, you know some sort of an up light type of fixture,
28:49
so the lights going up and out versus the ugly.
28:54
Fixture that's going down OK. Yeah.
28:58
And that's good because if you don't have the ceiling height
29:01
for a chandelier, for a living room that's 8 foot and under, I
29:08
mean, you can put a chandelier in an 8 foot high ceiling.
29:10
It just would you're, you have to determine the height of the
29:13
chandelier and how high it's going to hang over.
29:16
You know, if you're walking under it, it can only hang down
29:19
so. Low and there's ones that don't.
29:22
They're not super tall, like they are pretty flesh flushed to
29:27
the ceiling. But I think the reason why
29:31
they're important in general is just because they disperse the
29:34
light. Yeah, well, so if you can find
29:36
another solution besides like a chandelier that disperses the
29:40
light, well, go for it. And I like your solution of the
29:45
up lighting that kind of disperses the light up and out
29:48
instead of down. Yeah.
29:51
Or, you know, we should have had a picture up here, which I guess
29:55
we could add a picture of like what we're talking about as far
29:59
as an ugly light goes. And then the solution.
30:02
A simple, easy fix. You know that would help a lot
30:06
more than the ugly light. So then, OK, let's say we're in
30:11
our living room. We figured out how to make our
30:13
general light better, just our ambi light better, whether it's
30:19
fixing the builder grade light to be a little bit more of a
30:24
style driven light and now we need to get into some like
30:31
additional layered lighting just to better the room.
30:36
Where would you start? So, OK, depending on the room,
30:40
but if we're talking living room, definitely, you know, some
30:45
lamps, some table lamps would help, little accent lights if
30:48
you have. So if you have end tables, yeah,
30:52
put a lamp on your end table. If you don't want to do matchy
30:55
matchy, you could do an end table with a lamp on it.
30:58
You could still have another end table on the other side of your
31:00
sofa. Yeah.
31:01
And a floor lamp. Yeah.
31:03
That comes up and over your sofa or next to your sofa or next to
31:07
your chair. So that would be a great way to
31:09
layer the lighting without everything matchy matchy.
31:11
Right. But then also if you had a
31:13
standing lamp, it could double as your task lighting.
31:16
Yeah, that's true too. And then if you have, say,
31:20
bookcases in that room, like we have these cute little bookcases
31:24
here, you could put a lamp, like a small accent lamp on your
31:29
bookcase. Let's see what else if it's if
31:36
you're in your dining room, you know, other than your chandelier
31:40
over your table, you could also put a lamp on your sideboard or
31:44
if you have a console table in there to you can add, you know
31:48
your decorative things on that as well.
31:50
You can also use it as a buffet if you don't have a buffet, but
31:53
you could do buffet lamps, which are very tall and they give off
31:59
pretty nice lighting as well. So, you know, those are things
32:03
that you could do in those two rooms.
32:05
Nice. And then you can have your
32:09
accent lighting to like, like if you have a really great piece of
32:13
art, I feel like a living room could be a great place for an
32:15
accent light to just kind of highlight that, or an accent
32:19
light to highlight a plant or a tree or something.
32:23
Yeah, I love that idea. I love the tree idea because
32:26
that is just like a huge upgrade.
32:29
It makes your room look more expensive in my opinion.
32:32
Very Architectural Digest, right.
32:35
And then like the little, you don't have to have expensive
32:38
artwork. I mean you could make your own
32:40
art and put up there. You could frame your kids art
32:42
and put it on the wall and you can get little art lamps that do
32:47
not even have to be wired in. You can hang them above you just
32:52
apply them to the wall, hang them over your piece of art and
32:55
it adds that extra little bit of ambiance to the room that.
32:59
Is so cool and there are so many creative lighting solutions now
33:05
that aren't crazy expensive so. Yeah, it used to be if you had
33:10
an art light over your piece of art, it was the art was super
33:14
expensive and the light, you know, the art light was really
33:17
expensive too. And I had to be hardwired in.
33:20
So that piece of art always had to stay there unless you move
33:24
the land, right, or move the art and put a different piece there.
33:27
But now it's. So I like things to be able to
33:30
be moved around in a home. I don't like when everything has
33:33
to stay right in its place, right.
33:35
So definitely the options of moving things around are.
33:38
Right, really good. And another cool accent light
33:41
trend I've been seeing is lighting under furniture in
33:44
places. So like under a TV console for
33:49
example. We have friends that actually
33:53
got a console built with track lighting included in it.
33:58
In the piece we have a bedroom group here that we may have
34:03
several. We actually do have several beds
34:06
that have lights in them. But this one we just got it in,
34:09
I can't remember the name of it, but the bookcase that goes with
34:14
the bed has a a light underneath the bottom.
34:19
It's a tall shelf. It's like this tall and the lamp
34:21
is right underneath it and you just touch it and it you can
34:25
touch it a couple times and it it either is brighter or darker.
34:29
Yeah, it's really great. But that's.
34:31
Awesome 'cause it showcases the furniture piece and just like
34:35
draws the eye further into the room and just it just adds so
34:39
much more depth to a room to have some accent lighting like.
34:42
That well, and too, if you're you know, if you're up in the
34:46
middle of the night and you don't want to wake up, you know
34:49
your partner, then that is a perfect thing to have is you
34:54
just touch the side of that. Little one, And it's not a
34:56
bright light exactly. And it's low enough that it's
34:59
not this big glaring light in the room and you can find your
35:01
way out of the room. Yeah, that's so true.
35:04
I know. It's like lighting is such a key
35:07
to design now. Yeah.
35:08
And it's part of breathing, yeah.
35:10
So it's a huge design element that I think we forget about.
35:15
So like you brought up that bedroom set that we have, what
35:20
kind of layered lighting would you recommend for a bedroom?
35:23
For a bedroom, it depends. So if you're buying a bed that
35:27
has the case piece or I'm sorry, the bookshelves built in, you
35:32
may still want because that light is low.
35:35
So you may still want a light for, you know, reading because
35:39
you don't want to have the whole the ceiling light on at night
35:44
unless, I mean, it's just kind of ugly at.
35:46
Night, I think, but in your bedroom it should be an Oasis of
35:50
relaxation. Yeah.
35:52
And that is where the ugly light or the big light is the most
35:55
offensive. So I think if you need extra
35:59
light for reading, you should make sure to have a table lamp.
36:02
That or or there's like so many lamps that can be built into a
36:08
bed frame that can we have the task lighting.
36:13
Yeah, we have that too. But if say you are buying that
36:16
bed that has the little bookshelves, so you could do a
36:20
small little lamp on one of those or you could do, you know,
36:26
above the headboard, you could do like just lamps that attach
36:29
to the wall like a little sconce type light that plug in so you
36:34
don't have to hardwire it because a lot of people get
36:37
nervous about, well, I like that, but I don't want to have
36:41
to hire an electrician to come out and then I've got to have my
36:45
project right there. It's yes.
36:47
And it seems like I'm designing a house and I am a homeowner.
36:50
Like a sconce. But you don't need to.
36:53
You don't need that, and some of them don't even plug in now.
36:56
Seriously. Battery powered.
36:58
They're battery powered and then you have the remote next to your
37:03
bed and you turn it on and off and it's it's a done deal.
37:07
So now there's no reason you can have those things that you want
37:11
and not have to spend a lot of money.
37:14
OK, so not that, I mean we love our electricians, but not
37:17
everybody can afford to, you know, have someone come out and
37:20
or install those things. All the time.
37:22
Or they're not allowed because they're renting.
37:24
You know exactly. And either way, you want your
37:28
yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's that's awesome.
37:32
And the other thing that I do want to mention, especially with
37:37
like bedrooms is your ambient lighting.
37:40
If you can't change out that big light to like a chandelier or a
37:44
different kind of light fixture, you don't want and.
37:46
At least put it on a dimmer. You could put it on a dimmer,
37:49
but the other thing is, I feel like ambient light can be
37:53
achieved through lamps, whether they're or standing lamps or
37:58
table lamps. You just have to make sure
38:00
they're bright enough and tall enough and placed correctly to
38:04
make sure that they fill the space that you need with light.
38:08
Yeah, because in the end, an ambient light is just something
38:10
that evenly drapes light throughout the room.
38:12
Yeah, and I think too, like in your bedroom, if you are reading
38:16
at night or, you know, reading on your iPad or whatever it is,
38:21
if your lamp isn't tall enough to shine the light down, it's
38:24
going to be harder to see what you're trying to read.
38:27
So if you love the lamp and you don't want to get rid of it, put
38:31
it on like a little accent box or books.
38:34
You know, you can build your little books up and then put
38:37
your lamp on top of it and then it raises it up enough so that
38:41
it it's good for, for reading. Yeah, that's such a good idea.
38:47
So let's go to the opposite side of the house.
38:50
Well, I guess it depends on the home, but like in the kitchen,
38:55
what is a good way to bring in light?
38:57
Because I think especially for some people that they move into
39:00
a house and there's, you know, not an opportunity to change
39:08
like the pendants or the recessed lighting or the ambient
39:11
lighting in the kitchen. How would you approach lighting
39:15
in the kitchen? Without having having to or
39:20
having to install something. Let's start there.
39:23
Yeah, like for if you are working within the framework
39:27
that you have, all you have is the big light.
39:31
And no recessed. And no recessed.
39:34
Well, then that's I'm just kidding.
39:36
Wow, that's a good question. And I bet there's a lot of
39:39
people that that's that situation.
39:43
So I would look at what type of light bulb you have in the
39:47
fixture. And so, you know, start with
39:51
that. If you've done that and you're
39:55
still like, what do we do? I would go and add the sconces
40:00
on the walls and not you don't have to do the hardwire like we
40:04
talked about. You could do those from Amazon,
40:06
look them up. You can also do battery powered
40:11
light bulbs. So you could do like a little
40:14
lamp on your countertop. That would be great.
40:17
You could even do under cabinet lighting and you could install
40:22
that yourself. That would be really easy to do.
40:24
Yeah. If your cabinets don't go all
40:27
the way to the ceiling, you could also do just like.
40:29
A little rope light in that and. Again, they could be battery
40:34
powered. Absolutely.
40:36
And then that would give a little glow up to the ceiling
40:39
and that would be a nice. Thing to do as well and the
40:41
other thing to consider is that whatever the paint or you know
40:50
wallpaper is in a room that will affect the lighting and the
40:54
lighting will affect how that paint or wallpaper looks so if
40:59
you have an all white kitchen and you have the big light it
41:02
can be abrasive yeah so even something as simple as adding
41:06
some wallpaper in could really warm up and and be like a great
41:11
conversation with the light that's.
41:12
It would give a little contrast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
41:16
I think we actually have an example how different tone of
41:20
light affect different. Yeah.
41:25
So like a piece will look different in different types of
41:31
light. So I mean, that's something we
41:33
run into all the time at a furniture company is a piece of
41:38
furniture will look different if it's in daylight versus dim
41:44
light or warm light. Indoor with few windows versus
41:49
indoor with a lot of natural light really changes the look of
41:55
a piece in a room. So, and there's an example from
41:59
one of our vendors of just how the same bedspread can look so
42:02
much different in different lighting settings.
42:04
And it's black and white the example that we're looking at.
42:08
So the color isn't as obviously changed except for in the cool
42:13
light because it almost looks blue.
42:14
But yeah, especially if you have colored pieces of furniture,
42:18
they can really look different depending on what kind of
42:21
setting you're in. Yeah, and the lighting will
42:23
bounce off of the wall paint. So that would definitely affect
42:28
how things look in your room. Yeah, totally, totally.
42:32
Yeah. So I like the idea of track
42:35
lighting or pendant lighting in a kitchen.
42:40
I think like those can be really tastefully done for accent
42:45
lighting. So if you do have the ability to
42:48
design your kitchen or add more lights to your kitchen, I think
42:52
that can actually be a really fun room to to coordinate
42:56
lighting. And so I remember one of my old
43:00
houses had some great pendant lights and that is like pendant
43:03
lights over an island. A kitchen island can be a great
43:07
place to prep things and have some really good task lighting.
43:11
Well, and it adds another visual layered interest to the space to
43:16
have pendant lights. And the other thing I've seen
43:19
lately with pendant lights over an island is to take them and
43:26
move them off to the side. So it's still over the island,
43:30
but they're not like perfectly centered.
43:33
Exactly. And then you could even do like,
43:36
say you're doing 3. I mean, you could do 2, but say
43:39
you're doing 3, you could hang them at different heights off to
43:44
the side. So you're still going to get
43:46
plenty of light over your island.
43:47
But it creates this artistic approach to.
43:51
Your lighting layout and your shirt and they can be such a
43:56
design focal point too in that room.
43:58
They can like define the style of that room very easily.
44:02
It used to be that, you know, pendants over your island were
44:07
just so utilitarian. You know, it was just, this is
44:10
what it's for. It's so you can see over your
44:12
island. And now it's, well, we want to
44:14
see, but we also want it to look really interesting.
44:16
Too look pretty. So it doesn't have to be
44:18
perfectly aligned, yeah. Yeah, that's kind of a cool
44:21
idea, an upgrade. And then in your bathroom, like
44:25
laundry rooms, I think a lot of the time ambient lighting is
44:28
used as the task lighting here. So we're really relying on track
44:32
lighting above vanity mirrors or, you know, wherever it may be
44:38
in your laundry room to provide the whole light for the whole
44:43
room. Yeah.
44:45
Well, in your bathroom, I mean, a lot of times if they have the
44:49
lights over top of your mirror, well now those mirrors can come
44:55
down. You can put an accent mirror up
44:57
and then do your pin or your sconces on either side of your
45:01
mirror. And that looks really good too.
45:03
And you can do some really nice like lighting above the shower
45:09
area too, if that's really separate from your vanity area,
45:13
whether it's like a recessed can light or you can even get a
45:17
little bit more design focused I'd imagine as well.
45:21
Yeah, for sure you could. Do you know you were talking
45:26
about the cabinets that have the lights in it?
45:29
Like you could do the same thing with your vanity as put like the
45:33
rope light underneath so it just gives it a little glow down?
45:37
That's a really cool idea, especially very contemporary.
45:41
Yeah. I like that because it really,
45:43
like, says this is a design piece to focus on.
45:47
Yeah, yeah. So I feel like that's all really
45:51
good tips that we have for lighting and the other general
45:58
for any room. No, I would I would say is if
46:02
it's daytime, just make sure you're finding lights that
46:06
complement daytime and not block it out and let the daylight in.
46:11
Let the daylight in for sure. Let the light of day in and
46:15
don't let the indoor ugly light take over your life because it
46:19
may be why you're not in a good mood.
46:21
I agree with that for sure. No more ugly light.
46:24
Yeah, no more, no more so. Well, I hope we've encouraged,
46:32
you know, our listeners to check out their lighting in their
46:35
house and make necessary changes.
46:38
Yep, but will help them have more beautiful home.
46:43
So to leave you with the most important thing to pay attention
46:49
to on a light bulb box, let's look at a couple light bulb
46:52
boxes in the store just so we can be there with people.
46:57
Is this little label that almost looks like a nutrition label.
47:04
What's a nutrition label for your eyeballs?
47:06
It is and it's usually on the back or the side of the box.
47:10
This example or an example that I saw at the hardware store is a
47:15
40 Watt bulb. So it's dimmer and it and it's
47:19
just, you know, a little bit more of a utility light,
47:22
probably meant to be in a ceiling fixture with other light
47:26
bulbs, but you want to pay attention to the lumens.
47:31
So that's how bright it is. That one's 450.
47:33
So it's not terribly bright. It's more dim.
47:37
And then this is another bulb. There's just so much information
47:41
on packages these days and it's really hard to know what to
47:45
focus on. But again, that lighting, you
47:48
know, fact sheet is important. And just paying attention to the
47:52
warmness in Kelvins and the brightness and lumens is all you
47:56
wish is, are the key main things that you need to pay attention
47:59
to. So if we're going to leave you
48:00
with anything, and that's what it is, yeah.
48:02
Yeah, and if you get in there and you forget everything we
48:06
say. Yeah.
48:07
Ask the sales associate because they're going to know and
48:11
they'll be able to help you with your lighting needs for sure.
48:15
Or refer back to the infographics we have on our
48:18
blog. That's true, yeah.
48:20
Always, always a good thing. The blog's always there for you,
48:22
and we'll link that in the show notes.
48:25
So yeah, comment wherever you are watching this to let us know
48:33
your lighting questions and send.
48:34
US pictures too. Yeah, we.
48:36
Love that we're pretty interactive with our comments
48:38
so. Or if you have questions and
48:41
you're like what do I do here in this room with this fixture, we
48:45
can help with that. Yeah, yeah.
48:48
All right. We'll see you guys next time.
48:50
Bye. Bye.