Constellation Lighting can help you select different the types of lighting you need in your home. Knowing when to use a specific form of lighting makes all the difference.
Ambient Lighting
This is the general lighting throughout your home and often comes from recessed ceiling lights, track lighting or a chandelier. It is soft lighting that washes the room without a harsh glare. Done correctly, it looks natural and leaves very few dark spots. It allows you to move freely through the home, performing general activities such as housework, entertaining company, or watching television.
Task Lighting
This is lighting directed to a particular area for a specialized task. Task lighting might be as much as four to five times brighter than ambient lighting. You may want to use task lighting over kitchen counters (often under the cabinets), your home office, or the desks in the bedrooms of your school-age children. A familiar type of task lighting is a reading lamp.
Accent Lighting
Accent lighting is meant to call attention of a particular item or feature. Think of an accent light that illuminates an original portrait or landscape painting in a hallway, or items on a bookshelf or in a display case. Use accent lighting to highlight an architectural feature of your home such as a textured wall or crown molding. Accent lighting is commonly used outside to highlight landscape features or a tree in a key location.
Combining Lighting Types
Any room in your home will require a combination of different types of lighting, depending on the room and the mood you want to create, and how you envision the room will be used. In a bathroom, for example, you’ll need ambient light, some form of task lighting and may want to create a spa effect so accent lighting will be important as well. There are a whole host of lighting variations within each category and this is another topic in and of itself. Whatever types of lighting you decide on, the beauty of residential lighting is that it can be customized for any purpose or need.