Purchasing quality light fixtures for an entire home – at once or even in stages – requires a huge investment and careful consideration.  There are about a billion things to factor into your lighting plan, and not all of them are especially fun (i.e., what it’s gonna take to rewire the electrical around a fireplace to install wall sconces).  Am I stressing you yet?  Well, I’m feeling a little stressy – but it’s cool, because I’ve walked through this particular fire and come out the other side. 

Finding and buying light fixtures that flow and happily coexist from one room to the next is totally doable – fun, even.  For the sake of entertainment (I don’t want to bore), we’re going to mostly skip the installation considerations you’ll have to discuss with your electrician and get to the good stuff.  Read on to discover the primary aspects you’ll need to consider when selecting a cohesive lighting system.

Determine Your Overall Design Aesthetic

This is the first thing to think about when selecting light fixtures for the home, and it’s pretty important to get right.  Everyone says that lighting is the “jewelry” of a room, and it’s easy to see why:  proper light fixtures finish and complete the space with such an impact that without it a room seems undone.

Okay, so it’s important, but how to choose a consistent design aesthetic?  Well, for starters, take a look at the architecture of the home and rooms where you’re allocating your purchasing power.  What does it tell you about the space (hopefully something!)?  Is your home clearly a historic colonial with lots of detailed millwork, or is it all clean lines like you’d find in a mid-century modern?  Observing and recognizing the architecture can help filter out different aesthetics, especially if you want your lighting to be consistent with it.  Alternatively, you could select lighting that offers juxtaposition to the architecture – this is a little trickier to pull off, but totally worth it.  I personally love contrasting super modern or even brutalist light fixtures with spaces that would otherwise be considered ornate.  Selecting these kinds of fixtures helps tone down and balance anything overly elaborate, as well as adding a ton of interest to the space.

The key takeaway is that once you determine the design aesthetic of the light fixtures you wish to buy, apply that same aesthetic throughout your home.  Keeping this consistency will help you attain that flow and cohesion we all like to see in the places we live.

Location, Location, Location

So now that we’ve determined your overall design aesthetic, the next question is the placement of the light fixtures within a room.  For proper lighting, a single room requires multiple fixtures, and it will almost always be a combination of overhead lighting with the more ambient.  Another consideration regarding placement is the function of the light itself:  a reading chair will necessitate a fixture more along the lines of task lighting, whereas an overhead light will cast a wide glow for more general lighting purposes. 

Once you’ve determined placement, now is the time to mix things up!  Each room should have a combination of task, overhead, and ambient lights.  In a great room, for example, you’ll want overhead lighting, whether it be recessed lights or a chandelier, along with a floor lamp, table lamp, and maybe even sconces (if your focal point is a fireplace, sconces affixed to both sides of it looks killer).

Limit Your Fixture Finishes

This one’s pretty straightforward:  limiting the number of finishes for your light fixtures will definitely increase the odds that the lighting throughout your home feels cohesive.  Now, I’m not saying to stick with one finish, as that would likely fall flat and feel boring.  What I do mean is for you to limit the finishes – especially within one room – to two, maybe three depending on room size.

Restricting your choices to just a couple of finishes will help you avoid your lighting choices from looking to mish-mashed and well, sloppy.

Repeat a Specific Commality

Another way to make your lighting feel intentional and consistent is to find something in particular that you love about light fixtures and repeat it in various spaces throughout the home.  Love pleated lampshades or hand-blown milk glass?  Then go ahead and select fixtures that feature those characteristics and place them in various spots throughout. 

A great way to home in on a specific feature you like is to create a Pinterest board and save all your faves.  If you’re like me and are scatterbrained, keeping all your inspiration photos in one place makes it that much easier to recall what you like (and don’t).  Take a gander at the fixtures you’ve curated and try to find a repeating feature that keeps popping up in the pictures.

Word of caution:  after finding that certain something that you like, just make sure you don’t repeat the feature too much.  I mean, like with a lot of other things in life, too much of a good thing can sometimes feel wrong.  So if you love fabric, pleated lampshades, repeat it and purchase a few (read:  not all of them), then scatter them throughout your home.  A good way to curate your repetition is to repeat the feature by selecting different types of fixtures, such as combining a wall sconce with pleated shades and a floor lamp with the same.

Well, there you have it – a few simple tips and tricks that, if followed correctly, will help you nail a cohesive lighting plan for your space and home.  And if you’re still unsure?  Reach out to us – MAW Interiors is here to help!