Prior to choosing lights for a room, you have to take a good look at its shape.
Also, the location of the room in your home is going to be a factor when you’re picking out lighting. For instance, a small office located near the front of your home that’s filled with tall windows would only need a couple of lamps to have sufficient lighting all day and throughout the evening. Choosing lights for a long, rectangular shaped, windowless basement is going to be a different situation. So, here’s how you can use the shape of your room to analyse what kind of lighting is most suitable.
Rooms with Tall Cathedral Style Ceilings
Remember that rooms are three dimensional, so while you will probably be keen to measure length and width, the height of a room is also a factor. Rooms with a raised ceiling are going to give you challenges when attempting to select the best lighting. Floor lamps will need to be taller in order to adequately illuminate the entire room.
Recessed lighting in the ceilings will need to make use of brighter bulbs so that there is proper lighting from floor to ceiling. As such, you are likely going to need to use various light sources in order to avoid having areas that are too dark or dimly lit. Consider getting a large central light source, such as a chandelier, to hang in the middle of the room. Put floor lamps in the corner so that there will be plenty of light everywhere.
Long and Rectangular Shaped Rooms
Rooms that are longer than they are wide can be fun to decorate and choose lights for, even if you will have to go to great lengths to get the lighting just right. These kinds of rooms generally also need a combination of light sources to stay well illuminated. You can also choose track lighting on the ceiling to make rows of light that go from corner to corner.
Alternatively, you may just want to have some standalone lighting situated near your furniture to help create a well-lit path to all of the areas that you use most often. You could easily choose to put a couple of floor lamps in the areas that are a bit darker. You will probably want to put the floor lamps in lesser used areas of the room, and so you could use a website such as Pagazzi where you can select a lamp with a lower powered bulb in order to keep the focus on the more used parts of the room.
Windows also make a huge difference when finding the right lamps, desk lighting, and light fixtures for long, more narrow rooms. Having just one big bay window can keep the room well-lit all day, and then at night, you can use secondary artificial light sources to make the room habitable.
Choosing Lighting for Square Shaped Rooms
Square shaped rooms are ideal for just about any type of light fixture. If the room is small enough, a single floor or desk lamp will do. Likewise, if there is a singular light fixture in the middle of the room you might not have to get any additional lamps if you use energy efficient bulbs. Overall, square-shaped rooms are just a lot easier to get the perfect lighting for.
On the other hand, it is easy to put too much lighting into a small square shaped room. To combat this, turn on one light at a time when it gets dark outside. If you find that you only need a floor lamp, then you can move the other light fixtures to a different room.
Really look at and consider the shape of your room prior to buying any type of lighting. If you have a big home, excess lighting can be used elsewhere, but if you are residing in a small flat you might feel like you have stage lights shining in your face all evening. Consider shape first and then size before you go over your lighting options.