Harmonizing with Lighting

By Sarah Van Arsdale

You can pull the look of a room together just by selecting the proper lighting. Using creativity and some simple rules of design, your choice of lighting fixtures will brighten, freshen and revitalize the room.

Let's look at how to best have your lighting choices harmonize.

There are two major points to consider here: harmony among the fixtures, and harmony between the fixtures and the rest of the furnishings.

• Tip: First, you want all the lighting in a given room to work together. Always consider the range of lighting options available, and make sure you make use of them, to avoid monotony in your lighting. In one room, you could have track lighting, floor lamps, and a table lamp; this will work as long as the lighting harmonizes, and will provide enough variety in types of lighting.

For example, you may have a living room with two floor lamps, one on either side of the sofa. This is fine, but a little boring. To make the lighting more interesting, and to add some variety, try adding a wall sconce and a desk lamp across the room. These lighting sources will work together to provide harmonious lighting.

But don't stop there; remember that any lighting fixtures must also harmonize with the rest of the room's furnishings. A sixties lamp won't work with a Victorian-styled room, just as Japanese paper shades are best used with a spare, Oriental look, or a very modern look.

You can always use the simple test of telling if each lighting fixture works by asking yourself how another style of lamp would work in its place. If the answer is "much better," then you know what you have to do.

This doesn't mean you should stint on creativity. A Chinese lantern style may work perfectly with a room decorated in sleek grey and white; an old-fashioned painted lampshade may be just the thing to pull together a room by bringing in all the colors of the sofa, carpet, and walls.

The main consideration is to make sure all the lighting elements, like everything else in the room, harmonize.

Reprinted with permission from the Sheffield School of Design