This is a guest post by Alia Haley.

Lighting different corners of the house can be a more challenging job than it appears in the beginning. One needs to keep various aspects of the room in mind before selecting the lighting scheme. Correct lighting can enhance the room and help every corner to achieve the perfect look that you desire.

Light up your life

Lighting should be flexible for different types of activities in the room. The mood and the atmosphere are some of the most important aspects that one needs to keep in mind before settling on a lighting scheme.

Lighting for accent points such as artwork, architectural details etc is a tough job because you have to insure that these become eye catchy. Spotlights are best suited for such effect. They consume less electricity and usually involve halogen bulbs. These can be a good, energy efficient choice.

Lighting specific areas

Lighting up ‘task’ areas in the proper manner is most essential. Task areas are the ones where you carry out some of your daily tasks such as reading, the bar, hobby room or gaming den. The amount of light can vary from task to task, like hobby and reading areas require bright lighting, where as the bar area may need much less luminosity. A hanging light, or floor lamp and spotlights can be good options. While fixing spotlights you need to take care of the glare and need to focus it carefully.

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It’s been two weeks since the last post? In my head, I thought I was away only this past week.  School admission and a very active cold virus in the house had kept us grounded for nearly a fortnight. However, I did find some time to hit the home decor stores in between for fresh finds.

I’ve been staying up late nights with a book, and once I’m done, it’s quite a task to walk off the bed and switch off the tube lights. Can you believe the bedroom does not have a table lamp yet? We’ve lead a nomadic life these past few years that some of the essentials never found a place. We are slowly getting our lives back in order and so is the house.  Well, I did have two, one of which I gave away when we last moved. I couldn’t find the shade for the other and came up with all these crazy projects t make one myself. It wasn’t worth the effort as the base, though never used, had suffered from the numerous packing/unpacking sessions. So, a table lamp figures high in the list of things to be purchased immediately.

I’ve been busy looking for interesting, simple and budget-friendly (under Rs.700) table lamps for my bedroom. It was quite disappointing to not find even a single tasteful piece at @ Home. It’s been a while since I stopped visiting Home Town. Home Town store displays are rather boring and highly priced.  Home Art didn’t stock any either. Can you believe what dismal lighting section most of these big retail stores have? So, I went to a few local light shops to find a clean lamp shade. Yes, I mean clean because most of the lamp shades (including the ones at @ Home on sale) are dirty from being over-exposed or lived a more shelf life than they were meant to.  In any case, it was a futile search in person and online to get a table lamp.

Some inspiration doesn’t hurt, does it?

Very functional table lamp

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