Lighting 101 for Homeowners

Lighting for Your New Home

Whether you’re redesigning your current space or planning lighting for a new home, Color Cord Company is proud to be your inspiration for design and resource for lighting advice. We provide all-in-one pieces that are easy to install right away as well as all the components and accessories you need to design something completely unique. We want you to discover your creativity and bring your space to life with our guidance, advice, and lighting ideas for a new home. Read on here to learn more about the different types of lighting options and how you can experiment with lighting for any space.

Types of Lighting

Before you start to look at different styles of sconces or cord colors, it’s important to consider the types of lighting that you’re planning for your space. Each type of lighting for your new home has a different purpose and can enhance or diminish the ambiance and feel of your space. Discover how ambient, task, and accent lighting for home decoration can make a difference.

Ambient

Also called general lighting, ambient lighting for home decoration is meant to provide your rooms with comfortable light at just the right balance of brightness and temperature. Incandescent bulbs will have a completely different feel from LED bulbs, and each of these has their own gradient of lumens and kelvins. You should also think about the shape and structure of these lights as they are often the biggest and most obvious fixtures in the room.

While this is one of the most basic needs of illuminating a space, the ambient lighting for your new home doesn’t have to be a single large globe or a lamp in the corner of each room! Get creative with how you plan your ambient lights in the ceiling above your kitchen and the area over your desk in the home office. From mounted lanterns on tracks to vanity lights around your bathroom mirror, think outside the box! Some people immediately look to recessed ceiling lighting for their ambient light, but chandeliers, pendants, and flush-mounted fixtures are all great choices as lighting ideas for a new home.

Since ambient lighting is considered the most important type of lighting, take your time when planning how you’ll introduce fixtures into each space. Even the tiniest loft can benefit from careful planning of lighting for home decoration that showcases your style and perfectly illuminates your space.

Task

Task lighting for your new home is the type of lighting that usually forms a small, tight beam to concentrate on a specific area in which you’re sitting. Task lighting gets its name based on the purpose that it serves, as it’s supposed to provide enough light for you to complete localized tasks. Common areas that need task lighting may include a reading nook, home office, or cooking surface. Whether it’s the wall sconce over your favorite armchair, the adjustable lamp at your crafting desk, or the pendant light above your stove, you want these lights to provide the right amount of illumination for whatever task you need to get done.

To blend your task lighting with ambient lighting in your new home, you’ll have to create a light layering strategy that allows you to develop a targeted design for your space. Plan out your ambient lighting first and then focus on the areas where you need additional task lighting to ensure an overlap that allows you to more clearly illuminate the details of your task. Make sure these task lights have separate wiring, so that you only turn them on when you need them.

Accent

Accent lighting, also known as highlighting, is used to draw the attention of visitors to a particular area or item in a room. Accent lighting in your new home helps create points of interest and showcases any art, furniture, or other unique décor pieces throughout a space. You can illuminate the interior of a curio cabinet, place a sconce below your favorite paintings to illuminate them from below, or light a specific tree in your yard. The accent lighting fixture is usually a subtle piece because you want everyone to focus on the item it’s illuminating. Avoid huge shades or complex bulb cages for your accent lighting.

Some people think that accent lighting in a new home is unnecessary, but at Color Cord Company, we see every little detail as crucial. We want you to literally shine a spotlight on those things that are most important to you!

Lighting with Color Cord Company

There is no right or wrong way to design lighting for a new home. As long as you enjoy the ambiance in your space, you like the way it looks, and you have enough light to cook, read, work, and entertain, you don’t have to worry about doing everything exactly right. You should be more focused on letting your creativity out and ensuring your vision is coming to life.

If you’re worried about the ideal distance between fixtures, the perfect length of cord, or the wiring you need to install, you can always discuss your technical and practical concerns with an electrician. We provide specific measurements and adjustable shopping options to ensure you find the right fixture to meet the technical specifications of your lighting plan.

Ready to get inspired? Explore the products at Color Cord Company today to find lighting ideas for your new home.