It seems a lot more complicated than it is, making your own lighting plan. And my experience is that that 'feeling' is fed extra by architects. We had no experience with it at all, but in the end we took the plunge ourselves during the renovation and determined how we want the light. A big advantage is that we have been living in our house for almost 2 years now. This has given us more insight into the light in the house. I will tell you how we arrived at this lighting plan and what we have done to ensure that it is complete soon.
Table of contents
First of all, I would like to discuss whether you have a lighting plan made or whether you make your own lighting plan. If you are very insecure about yourself, or have a huge doubt ass, then it might be good to also ask for the opinion of an expert. But our experience is that you actually know quite well how to arrange the light.
Making a completely new lighting plan is practical if you are going to live in a new house that is still under construction. Or if you - just like we have done - are carrying out a major renovation. If you really want to do a good positioning, it is necessary that you can slide all your light points and that is not so easy in an existing house where there are already light points in the ceiling. Unless you want to have cables in sight everywhere, but of course we prefer not to have that.
If you are going to start making a lighting plan yourself, keep these tips in mind.
Hint: While you are making your lighting plan, also look around for beautiful lamps, they will undoubtedly give you other ideas. I like to browse Lampen24.nl myself, they have so many beautiful things there!
It is nice if you already have the layout of your house in mind. But that's easier said than done, of course. Especially if you are going to furnish a new house that you can't yet look into. But even if you are moving into a new house that you have already seen, it can still be difficult to determine the layout properly. Because what is good?
And if you're as fickle as I am, you still want to be able to play with the decor every now and then, don't you? When making your lighting plan, however, it is important that you already know how to deal with it for a number of places. For example, where do you put your sofa? Because you would like to have mood light on your sofa when you watch TV, but you would undoubtedly also like to have a reading lamp. For example, if you curl up on the couch with a vtwonen magazine on a dark day.
In our case, I think it is nice that we have lived in this house for almost two years before we turned our living room and kitchen upside down during a major renovation. We know exactly where the dark corners in our house are. And we have now made use of that when making the lighting plan. All places have been screened and equipped with (atmospheric) light. Do you have no idea about the interior yet? Then make a floor plan, cut out your large furniture to scale and slide it into the floor plan to see what your options are.
First of all, the layout. We have a number of fixed elements in it. The sofa, the large closet in the living room, and the wood stove for example. All three are inconceivable elsewhere, because of the shape of the room and the unmanageable cupboard 😉 . But 'every disadvantage has its advantage', Kruijf once said. Because these elements are fixed, it is very easy for those places to think about how we want to deal with the light there.
So in our layout I first looked at where we sit when we watch TV. But also to the place where the dining table is, where you stand at the counter to cook and where you like to read the newspaper or possibly work on the PC. Since we have a home office, the PC or laptop in our living room is not an issue, so I don't have to take that into account.
I then assumed that we would not use all the light points in the middle of the room (the ceiling light points). These are never in the right place. And I don't like a hanging lamp above the coffee table. Since we made a plastered ceiling in it instead of the original wooden scraps, we were able to nicely hide the existing ceiling light points.
Of course we did use those light points to connect electricity. These central boxes are the center of the other light points and wall sockets in every house. You can't really remove them because you need the wiring. But you can plaster them away if they do not fit in the lighting plan that you are going to make or have made. As long as you have connected the wires correctly.
Then we went to see what we need in terms of light for each room. It is important here that you -when making the lighting plan- look at how you stand in a room or where you sit. For example, in the kitchen you are at the counter and the central light point only provides shadow. That bright spot always shines in your back. Not useful at all when cooking and especially not when cutting your vegetables and the like. Then you actually want light from the front, or from above. We are therefore going to work with a rail spot and spots that you can click on any desired place in the rail. I have already marked them on the map. But you can also opt for wall lamps.
In the living room I really wanted a reading lamp through a light point on the wall and in the alcove next to the TV our famous monkey lamp will soon emerge from behind a plant. We also have lighting in the living room in the form of spotlights for the cupboard that we have made in a cove. This cove is a conscious choice, because the cabinet cannot be moved and we could not finish the ceiling above it properly. In the end, this worked out very well, because the mood lighting from the spots is top notch.
Yet I still missed some light from our couch when I looked towards the dining room. I never knew that beforehand, but because we have lived here for two years now, that has become clear. This is a dark corner where there was no light point so we couldn't do much with it lately. While replacing the ceiling, we were able to make a ceiling light point for a beautiful hanging lamp. The light point is located on a corner that is clearly visible from the living room and dining room and requires an eye-catcher that still provides subtle light.
And we have found it in this beautiful hanging lamp from Graypants made in the Netherlands!
I am really very happy with this beautiful 'wasp nest' and the place where it hangs. Thanks to the preparation of the lighting plan in advance, I was able to get a good idea of the type of light we needed in this place.
When drawing up your lighting plan, it is important that you take into account direct light and indirect light for each room. The direct light shines directly on the place where you need light. Such as with your countertop, but also with the lamps above your dining table as you can see above. Indirect light shines diffusely or comes through the wall, for example. But also a floor lamp, or a lamp with a fabric lamp base that diffuses light is indirect light. Just like this nest lamp from Graypants, which gives a nice diffused light through the hood of recycled cardboard that is around it.
It is also important to look at the positioning. Don't let all the light come from the same height. Play with the heights of the light sources for a nice look. For example, also use a nice low floor lamp that shines light upwards instead of from top to bottom. As long as you don't look directly into the lamp, that's annoying.
When thinking about your lighting plan and creating it, choose light sources that can shine brightly where you need it. Think of the counter, a reading lamp, piano lamp or above the dining room table. You also have light sources that provide mood lighting. In our case, the latter are, for example, the spotlights near the cupboard, but also a rope lamp that we are going to hang in the corner of the dining room. Keep in mind that good reading light has at least 60 watts.
If you are making a lighting plan anyway, also see how you can coordinate all the light in your home. Perhaps it goes a bit far to harmonize the kitchen, dining room and bedrooms. But if the rooms have an open connection with each other, it is very nice if you can use the same kind of light in the room. In addition, it is nice if you can dim certain lamps, so that you can use them brightly, but also as a kind of mood light.
We choose to slowly replace all our light sources with Philips Hue lamps. We can coordinate these perfectly with the app (in terms of light color and brightness) and also very easy to operate. With the app, but also with Google Home, for example.
How did you arrange the lamps in your house and devise the places for light? Have you thought about it in advance or are you more of the 'go with the flow' principle?
This article was created in collaboration with Lamps24, they supplied the lamp between the living room and dining room.
