Illuminatw your life with statement lighting that reflects your personal style.
Essential in any living or working space, lighting can be far more than simply practical. It can transform the feel of a space, create balanced mood, and accentuate a room’s architecture or contents.
Whether you own or rent, you can enhance the spaces you inhabit with your choice of statement lighting piece.
What to choose
Start at the top: pendant lights are a great way to add interest. While of course limited by considerations of load and bulk, there is still a broad range of things you can dangle from a ceiling. Wander around a lighting warehouse for some ideas, but don’t restrict your vision to what you can afford in-store. Garage and demolition sales can offer less expensive options with infinitely more character. A simple and utilitarian way to light a kitchen bench or other workspace is to suspend a horizontal bar above it, and wind the cords of a selection of bare bulbs around it. Keep it uniform, or mix it up with cords of different lengths and perhaps even a variety of bulb shapes.
Make light of it
Keep costs down and your signature style centre stage by thinking about what you may already own that could hold or frame a light source. The popularity of using old crab and lobster pots for lighting demonstrates how successfully even the most seemingly unlikely items can be repurposed as feature fixtures. What about an old bird cage hanging in a corner, or a gnarly piece of driftwood used as a lamp pedestal to direct light onto your shell collection?
Budget bespoke
Even if you don’t perceive yourself as a crafty type, you can home-make one-off light fixtures from scratch. One economical way to DIY easily and effectively is to blow up a balloon to the desired size, then dip or soak string in a glue mixture (4 parts warm water to 1 part PVA wood glue works well, adding flour or cornflour to thicken it up as required) and wrap it around the balloon. If you need to, hold the string in place with tape at first. Make sure to leave an uncovered space on one side of the balloon big enough for you to fit a hand in, so you can easily remove the balloon and change light bulbs later. Let the string dry, then pop the balloon. The string can be painted with metallic or any other sort of paint you fancy.
Not too dark, not too light
While the general design principle of ‘less is more’ applies to lighting too, you don’t want to strain your eyes deciphering the ingredients in a new recipe or reviewing course materials pre-exam. Task lighting is of primary importance, providing necessary illuminating for reading, cooking or find handiwork. Directional lighting draws attention to things you want people to notice: a treasured sculpture or a unique architectural element perhaps. Ambient lighting creates mood. Use candles and tealights to instantly augment atmosphere with flattering light, shadows and even scent, but don’t leave them unattended.
And remember, one of the most wonderful things about interior lighting: when it’s time to mute the world, rest your eyes and nest peacefully, the dimmer or off switch is always within easy reach.
WORDS: Kelly Blaney-Murphy
