Present2Sell - Your Time Winter 2008
Enlightened lighting
Lighting our homes well becomes more important as the days grow shorter. This is especially so if we have a property on the market and we want viewers to see our home at its best. There's nothing more depressing and off-putting to buyers than rooms that are either gloomy or stripped of colour with overly harsh lighting.
There are three main issues to consider with lighting: choose your lighting by what you want it to do. Is it to show that this area is good for close working tasks such as reading or needlework? Is it to light a particular object such as a painting? Is it to improve the room's ambience? Having determined this, think about how to maximise the impact of that decision. Enhance the warmth that table lamps create by placing them at intervals and at varying heights. This brings interest and drama, in much the same way that rhythm does in music, so emphasise this by lighting them prior to viewings. Work with what the light does by placing reflective objects within the light fall, or by having the light reflect in glass or mirrors.
Consider light's opposite - shadow. You can make viewings at dusk really work for your gardens with this. Patios can be enlivened by uplighting the foliage of large plants. Make the shadow it casts fall on an uneven surface to distort the shadow, adding interest to it. Raking the light across a textured surface, such as decking, also creates unusual shadows. Get the basics right first though! Make sure your path lights the way to your front door, and that your house number or name can be seen from the road in the dark.
Lighting is a quick and easy way to create focal points which are so important for putting viewers at ease. Say, for example, you have an uninteresting landing area but one which is pivotal to setting the scene for the upper floor. All you need is a standard lamp, a chair, a small table, a textured cushion and a few small ornaments in one colour that relates to wall and floor colour. Arrange the light behind the chair and dressed table, so that light falls on the ornaments and textured cushion, and you have a visual holding point for the transition to the other rooms.
The next area for consideration is bulb type. You’ll want the energy assessment in your HIP report to be favourable so choosing modern low-energy light bulbs make sense. However, many of these cast a rather flat, cool light so use ones whose light is at the warm end of the spectrum. If you're unsure how to balance the right ambience with low energy, get expert help from a company such as The Electrical Benchmark (www.electricalbenchmark.co.uk).
Last but not least is the issue of style. Be aware that all objects communicate in an unspoken way. The trick is to know what message is being broadcast by your choices and to make your interior elements say what you want them to say.
Lighting should always relate to the use of the space which in turn determines a room's style. In formal rooms, such as the dining room, choose fixtures in flamboyant shapes and lampshades in dark silks to echo the drama of of the dinner party. In rooms for relaxing in, choose natural, textured lampshade material. Blend these with central pendants that cast a diffused ambient light for an informal look. Bedrooms often have opposing lighting requirements as this room is both a place of rest and refuge at the end of the day, as well as one of preparation for the day ahead. Wall mounted spots are great as reading lamps and to light the area around your full length mirror. Softly downlit wallwashers will create a gentle tempo from ceiling to floor; table and bedside lamps will intensify your accent colour and enliven the space in between night and morning activities.
