To gain the best possible look of your home or office you need make sure lighting is adjusted to your space. You would like either a cosy atmosphere or something modern and minimalist, lighting can always emphasize whatever you want to express in your home or office. At home, proper illumination is sufficient for us to feel comfortable, while in a business environment it is necessary to boost sales and to create a healthy working environment.

In either case the environment of the space we are illuminating is determined by its natural surroundings, which is something we need to take into consideration. The size and site of the windows, and how they are situated will decide how much light we need in the room for proper illumination.

If you get a lot of natural light during the day, you can put less emphasis on general functional lights, or in other words you might not need downlighters of that intensity.

Décor lighting works on other grounds, depending less on the environment and more and what you would like to emphasize in your home.

LED lights are a highly energy saving and varied solution for both functional and décor purposes. These LED lights also require no maintenance during their very long lifespan, saving you even more on calling out the electrician. Since LED lights are available with standard sockets (LEDs requiring special fittings is a common misconception), you will not need to look for any specific or special lamps, fittings or chandeliers, just choose according to taste.

There are a couple of guidelines which may help you get a better illumination in your room. It is best to differentiate functional and décor lighting, and within functional main and support lights. As far as main lighting is concerned, it is obviously best if you make sure that the area is well illuminated for general activities. In high ceiling rooms chandeliers or similar fixtures are not only useful but also decorate the area below the ceiling. For low ceiling rooms recessed downlighters are the best solutions.

The type of light you use also depends on the function of the room. In a living room for instance, where we don’t usually need full brightness it is useful to have more supporting lights, like a standing lamp or a strip for the background along the walls, if we don’t want the room to light up fully. Here we can also create mood lighting with some spots for accent lighting on walls, mantelpieces, and works of art or a plant. Ambient lighting is also common for home-cinema sets. RGB or colour-changing strip LED lights are a popular choice of decoration due to the large variety of displays. It is also a decorative way of illuminating and creating a special atmosphere in your restaurant or hotel.

Local lights, like vanity ones in a bedroom or bathroom around a mirror can also be created with strip lights or spotlights. Under-cabinet lights for worktops or signal lighting for edges of furniture or staircases are all typical places for an LED strip light, which emits a diffused, even light with high brightness that can be dimmed down to your needs.