Lighting Up: How to Choose the Right Lighting Fixtures for Your Home

Besides brightening living spaces and making them useful, lighting is an integral part of good home decorating that can set certain moods. Cleverly placed lights can draw attention to a favorite piece of artwork, or be repositioned to give the room an entirely new look.

There are three ways that lighting is used in the home: general, task and accent lighting. General lighting provides the room with an even background of even light. Task lighting focuses light for doing certain jobs, and accent lighting adds drama to any room.

The lighting choices available to today’s home decorators and do-it-yourselfers are virtually endless because lighting manufacturers are continuously designing new products to match any decor and budget. The most difficult installations are best left to an electrician, but there are many home lighting projects that can be done yourself.

Basic Lighting Fixtures

Portable/freestanding: These include floor lamps, desk or table lamps. Basically it refers to any lighting that can be moved.

Pendant Lights: Pendant lights are hung from ceilings and cast light down. They are used as general lighting and task lighting. Pendant lights include everything from a basic single bulb to extravagant chandeliers.

Track Lights: Track lights are sets of lights attached to a ceiling or wall on a track. The individual lights are movable, which makes track lighting a good option for use as task or accent lighting.

Fluorescent Panels: Fluorescent ceiling panels produce general light with few shadows. Newer-style tubes cast a warmer and more flattering light than the older tubes.

Strip Lights: Strip lights have rows of incandescent bulbs and are very effective when used over bathroom mirrors.

Ceiling Fans: Ceiling fans are available with lights and can compliment any decor. Ceiling fans are easy to install and use only modest amounts of electricity.

Sconces: Sconces are wall mounted units that cast light up or down the walls for a more muted look. Sconces are used for accent lighting.

The type of lighting that you use in your home can also make a difference in your energy consumption and energy bills, so choose wisely. Incandescent bulbs are still the standard in home lighting. The bulbs are very inexpensive and cast a nice warm toned light, but they waste a lot of electricity by generating excess heat. Fluorescent bulbs produce a cooler looking light, and are available in "cool white" "warm light" and "daylight" tones. Because fluorescent bulbs don`t produce very much heat, they are especially good  for areas where air conditioning is used. Halogen is actually a form of incandescent lighting. The bulbs are filled with halogen gas, which produces light that is very white and much closer to real daylight than either fluorescent or incandescent lighting. Halogen bulbs are quite expensive but they last a very long time.