by Sarah Van Arsdale
The Sheffield Guidelines to Interior Design can be applied not just to furniture selection, placement and wall color, but also to lighting. Lighting can make or break a space if it doesn’t match its mood and clashes with the style of the other elements of the room.
The first two guidelines to consider are Function and Mood. The third guideline is Harmony, and this is where everything about Function and Mood come together.
The importance of harmony in a room cannot be overstated. Just imagine a living room with a overstuffed, ornately carved sofa and an ultra-modern end table. They just wouldn't go together.
Just as you want the other elements of a room to harmonize, so too the different lighting elements should act together in harmony to produce an interesting yet unified effect.
The unity that's achieved in harmony, however, does not mean monotony. The greatest failing in the lighting schemes of many amateur designers is that they don't offer enough variety in the lighting of a room, and then their lighting is monotonous.
- Tip: You can add variety by using different types of fixtures for different tasks, by having illumination flow in different directions, by having fixtures at different heights, and by providing different levels of intensity of light.
Of course, variety does not mean a crazy-quilt effect. All the different types of lighting you use in a room must work together in harmony.
Reprinted with permission by the Sheffield School of Design
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