A home filled with light and air – it’s the first thing that comes to one’s mind while thinking of a new home. A home filled with light fills the mind of its people and guests with positive energy. Through natural sunlight to man made artificial lamps – it’s possible to fill your home with light. If you are also one among those who dream so, just go through my points. I have given a few suggestions to design your interior in a better way using lamps.

Most important is sunlight

• Sunlight is most pleasant to our eyes than any other light and so, while drawing plan give importance to sunlight first.
• Give big windows to allow maximum sunlight inside. French windows and glass doors are the best.
• If windows are placed in the western direction, glare may appear. To avoid glares inside rooms, use sun shades. Using plants, day curtains and blends also, glares can be controlled.
• Open courtyard can be build inside house. It can be placed near living room or dining hall. If you can’t make a spacious open courtyard give a big opening to allow maximum sunlight. Polycarbonate sheets or glass panels can be used as roofs.
• If you are not interested in open courtyards, you can make openings in roof and place tafant glass or polycarbonate sheets.
• If a wall to outside from living room or dining hall is made with glass, your home will get maximum sunlight inside. Use tafent glass or safety glass for wall construction. If you are not interested in giving a full wall with glass, make the upper part of wall with glass from the middle.
• Arrange pillars using ferro cement or stone and construct walls in pergola style.
• Give big windows to the outer wall of kitchen to give maximum light.
• Electronic exhaust fans and ventilators also play an important role in allowing maximum sunlight to your rooms. Even if windows are closed these two constructions can inpiut sunlight inside your rooms.

Electric lamps giving light

• Using artificial lights, we can control the lighting inside our home up to some extend. Since lighting influence the nature of the room and mood of persons living inside, give more significance while choosing lighting equipments for interior. Same importance should be given while electric lamps are arranged.
• Give importance to tastes of people also while lighting. You can ask help from interior designer or lighting consultant.
• According to requirement, use both warm lights and cool lights. Warm lights give yellow lights while cool lighting gives importance to blue or white.
• LED, fluorescent tube lights and CFL give white light. If you want yellow lights use warm CFL, warm LED, halogen light and incandescent lamps.
• Ambient lighting gives uniform light to the whole room. If it’s given sunlight colour, it gives a natural feel to your room.
• Task lighting is best while you are doing some work and it can be used in study table and kitchen slabs.
• Through lighting it’s possible to highlight a particular portion of a room. It is also possible to change moods of a room with lighting arrangement.
• While lighting a room, most important factors are colour of walls and colour of room. If dark colour paint is used, it needs more light. If light colours are used for walls, simple lights are sufficient as they reflect more light.
• Through lighting it’s possible to make a room more spacious or narrow.
• Direct lighting and concealed lighting – lighting is of two types. Direct lighting arrangement is done through ceiling lamps and wall mounted lamps. Fold ceiling method is used for concealed lighting.
• Now chandeliers are also available. It consists of multi-bulbs and they can be lighted according to our requirement. It’s possible to light 2-3 bulbs or a chandelier as whole.
• While lighting, avoid bulbs that give more heat to control the heat inside room. Halogen bulbs give excess heat as well as more electric consumption.

In your living room

• Warm lighting is best for your living room. To give a natural look, avoid fluorescent tubes.
• If you are using bulbs except CFL, using dimmers you can control light settings.
• Instead of giving important to ambient lighting only, give spotting lights also to highlight some attractive spots of your living room.
• Place a big ceiling lamp or wall mounted lamp in your living room. Chandeliers and hanging pendent lamps can add more attraction to your living room. If your living room has a ceiling fan, assure that its shadows won’t collide with your chandelier.
• Table lamps, floor lamps and spot lights are best for a living room. Table lamps and floor lamps protect light rays from shattering.
• You can use LED and Halogen lights for highlighting something. Arrange spot lights highlighting curios.
• In which part of ceiling lighting is to be done, when switched on light goes in which direction – while giving lighting to rooms, give attention to these two determinant factors also.
• Instead of adding lamps in a row, use any other irregular pattern to get some freshness to your lighting arrangement. Floor lamps and table lamps can be used for this purpose.
• You can hide source of the lamp giving a special look to your interior and this technique is known as indirect lighting.

In your dining room

• In addition to good light, if you want to add a royal look to your dining area, use chandelier lights. Never place it in the middle of your dining room. Instead place it in the middle of your dining table. Chandelier point in the ceiling should be given only after determining size of the table and its position.
• If your dining hall is spacious, you can use pendants or hanging rods in the ceiling just above your dining table. On either side of the room ceiling, give small ceiling fans.
• If there is something to highlight, use focus light.

In your bedroom

• Just understand your bedroom’s furniture and its use. Then only think about lighting ideas.
• In addition to main lights, your bed room needs reading light too. Reading lamps can be given on either side of bed, in the wall. Table lamps or hanging lamps can be given here. Reading lamp can be given in head board also. Switches should be hand distant from bed.
• If study area is present give task light. Give special lighting to your wardrobe also.
• Wall mounted lamps can be used in bed rooms. Take care while fitting these lamps. Their light rays should never penetrate our eyes.
• If you have false ceiling, give concealed fixture.
• If your room contains a dressing table, shadow of light should never fall directly in the eyes of the person who uses it that time. Natural colours are best for dressing table.

For your bathroom

• For ambient lights, give tubes. Give yellow warm lights except fluorescent ones. CFL is the best.
• In addition to shower area give lighting around wash basin.
• Shadow should never fall on either side of the person who uses the wash basin – lighting arrangement should be done this way.
• Now fixtures have come to market to give brightness to mirrors that fade with absorbed moisture. Use fixtures for your bathroom mirrors. 

Last, but not the least – your kitchen

• Since kitchen is already hot, give cold lighting. Use white lamps.
• General lighting is most essential for a kitchen. Use ceiling mounted lamps for this purpose. You can sue tube lights to give ambient lighting.
• Never give lights above upper cabinet. It casts shadows beneath.
• Provide task lights below cabinets in concealed manner.
• Use halogen lights or CFL for highlighting.
• You can provide lights below cabinets or in between cabinets to make your kitchen slabs more attractive. If it’s not possible to give lights in between cabinets, use it in a concealed way with the help of glass.
• If sink is placed near window, no need to switch on lights while washing dishes at day time.
• Normally kitchen is placed in east direction ensuring maximum sunlight inside.

LEDs – the lights of future

They are most eco friendly lamps with less energy consumption. These small lamps have created revolution worldwide with its advantages and now, it’s common in our country also. Normal bulbs emit light when gas filled inside or filament gets heated up. But in the case of Light Emitting Diodes, shortly known as LEDs, give light when electricity passes through semiconductor diode.

Indicator lights of television and other electric equipments are LEDs. Yet, LEDs have became a part of lighting in homes just a Jupiter year back. From colourful LED lamps, the invention of white lamps brought revolution in this industry. So, let me quote a few advantages of using LEDs for your interior lighting.

Low electric consumption

It needs comparatively less electricity than CFL. It needs just 1/3rd of energy of a CFL thus reducing your electric bill a lot. It needs 80% less energy to glow comparing incandescent bulbs.

High life span

An LED lamp can glow from 12-20 years. Like other bulbs, its fuse never goes. Damahes can occur if any irregularity happens in electric circuit. Since its colour begins to fade during last stages, it’s easy to identify it.

Less energy loss

It never emits heat and hence a lot of energy loss through heat emission is saved. In normal lamps, where 60-80% of energy is converted to heat, only 10-20% loss is occurring in the case of LEDs.

More luminance

It gives more light while comparing other electric bulbs. When 1 watt CFL gives 40-50 lumens, 1 watt LED gives 70-90 lumens. Lumen is the measurement of intensity of light emitted from a source.

It functions even in low voltages

When normal bulb needs 230 volts to function LED needs just 85 volts. It never blinks during low voltages.

Eco-friendly

Since this lamp doesn’t contain mercury, it can be considered as an eco friendly lamp.

Small size

Through ages we have seen a lot of changes in size and shapes of bulbs. LEDs are small in size and hence it’s possible to arrange more than one or two lamps while doing lighting arrangement.

Can be fitted everywhere

Not only in living rooms and kitchen, it can be fitted in corridors and swimming pools also. Since it won’t heat or damage easily, they can be used in paths directly. They are not easy breakable also.

Only disadvantage is high cost of purchase. But if we consider our electric bill for long term, it’s best to opt for LEDs. Another defect is that since it passes light in straight directions only, it can’t be used for general lighting purposes.

Lighting – Some common rules

Through lightening it’s possible to change the mood of a family or a celebration. So, lighting should be done according to situation also. During parties and functions we can use colourful lamps with brightness. But it a normal home, we need a cooling and calm effect.

Lighting is done in two types

In homes, both white lights and warm lights are used. For activities that give strain to eyes, need white light for sure. That’s why we choose them for a reading room or kitchen. To give a pleasant atmosphere to interior, warm lights are chosen. In a home both these arrangements are needed.

Light according to our needs

According to light consumption, we can divide our home to different zones. It can be categorized according to the necessity of white and yellow lights.
Living room – used for treating guests is very important. It can said to be the public place of your home. Yellow light is best. Yet you can provide white light at a particular area if you want to use that room for reading or writing purposes.

Dining area needs a darker atmosphere. So, use yellow lamps here. You can fix hanging lights above the ceiling of your dining table.

Kitchen needs white light

Lighting should be done in such a way that housewife is able to see everything around easily. Also she should be able to distinguish the colour of dishes easily. So, a white source of light is an inevitable part of kitchen. Place for cutting vegetables and washing dishes should be given enough lighting.

Lamps for other areas

Though yellow lamps are best for bed rooms, reading area needs white light. In a bathroom, a common lighting is needed. According to your desire, you can choose either yellow or white. If a mirror is placed, it needs white light. Now spotlights are common for highlighting a particular area or curios. Switches should be easily reachable, yet take precaution measures for kids.

How to save energy and money by giving attention in designing phase

According to calculation 60-80% money is needed for home maintenance after its construction. Since we are not spending that amount in a small time span, we are not noticing it. Water, electricity, cooking gas and repainting are among those ingredients that add expenses further. But during construction phase itself if we give importance to light and air, we can save a lot of money.

Warm welcome to light and air

40% of electricity is used for lighting and air conditioning. So, designing a home giving maximum importance to light and ventilation can save electricity, of course. You need not use lights or fans during day time, your designing should be done in this way.

Never use bulbs and plug points in excess, but provide them at correct places. No need to use numerous bulbs in gates. Twilight lamps are enough. Use electric appliances and wiring of high quality. Spaces like storage, work area, dressing area and staircases have less ventilation and hence less light. Provide sky lights in such places to allow maximum light. Give sufficient opening in roof slab. Then give grill and then glass or polycarbonate sheet to complete the construction.

If cross ventilation is done in a better way in bathroom, you can avoid an exhaust fan. Place water sensing switch in your water tank that switches off your motor saving water and power. Avoid normal bulbs as much as possible for lighting your home.

Sun and rain for you

Use rain harvesting system to save water for future purposes. Fit solar water heaters and panels that can save a lot of energy wastage. Now wind can be used for producing energy for home appliances. Fix a windmill in your terrace. Biogas plant can save bill of gas stove and induction cooker.

Here I conclude

So, we have come to an end of this article. Though lighting can be done through artificial methods it’s better to design a home with proper ventilation that allows maximum sunlight and air inside. It not only reduces your electricity bill but increases the health of your family members too. So, I suggest you to build big windows at proper places to make lighting process a little more light. Remember, if more importance is given to allow maximum sunlight inside your home, it saves a lot of lighting bills too. Also buy lights of good quality so that they give their best output as well as reduce your electricity bill a lot. Hoping my points will help you a lot while designing interior of your new home.