Effective Display Lighting Tips For Your Home
Lauren Tyler Using display lighting is a great way of highlighting your home decor and showing certain objects at their best. The most common items that display lighting is used for are pictures, collectibles and displaying plants and flowers. Most collectibles (and under this umbrella are items such as ornaments, trophies and crockery) are placed on a shelf for show - either a cabinet with a glass window or an open free standing shelf. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that you have your wiring for the display lighting sorted out when fitting your cabinet or shelf. Tungsten or fluorescent miniature strip lighting can be used to great effect with shelves by hiding the tube behind a batten which is fixed to the leading edge of the shelf that resides above the object you want to display. Or you can use glass shelves and just have one light source which can be placed above or below. The light thrown from the strip lighting will illuminate the objects but not cause any direct glare and give you a nice effect whereby your objects look as though they are illuminated from behind even though there is no visible light source to be seen. Another simple but effective way of highlighting your objects is to place them on occasional tables and use simple but effective table lamps with large lampshades. Here the circle of light thrown from the lamp is great for illumination purposes. The material that the objects are made from has a great bearing on the type of lighting that can be used to bring out its best qualities. An example of this is lighting glass objects from behind or above - this simple but effective lighting trick results in the glass object glowing beautifully, especially if it is contrasted against a dark background. Similarly, the use of narrow-beam spotlights aimed directly at objects made from or containing silver, cut glass, crystal and diamonds, will produce magnificent sparkles as the light beams down and reflects off the facets. This is why jewellery is often displayed this way in the stores. Pictures can be difficult to light properly as there are many factors that can get in the way such as normal daylight which reflects off your picture surface and distorts your viewing of it. Light reflecting from windows or light fittings and being reflected from the glass covering of your frame is also problematic and needs to be limited somehow. There are various ways of dealing with glare and reflection, such as using spotlights or picture lights and angling them in such a way as to reduce the glare and reflection. Another idea is to slightly tilt the picture towards the floor. Again, with a bit of experimentation and creative thinking, it is not impossible to get the lighting right for your picture, tricky but not impossible. And last but not least, display lighting can be used to great effect to highlight plants and flowers and in doing so can bring a taste of the outdoors into your home. Having plants and flowers in your home is great for aesthetics and also on a botanical level. Placing a tungsten light source behind a plant makes the plant seem to glow with green light wherever the beam catches leaves that are translucent. It is important to note however, that caution must be exercised when using lights on natural plants and ensure that the light source does not scorch the plants. Place your hand of the part of the plant that is nearest to the light source - if you can feel warmth from the light source then move the light further away. Lighting dried flower bouquets has to be done with care but can bring out their colors and textures beautifully. About the Author
Whether you are using table lamps or other light fixtures,lighting can be used to great effect to highlight your home decor. Lauren Tyler may be contacted at http://www.lamplightworld.com. Click here to view more articles by Lauren Tyler. Reprinted with Permission from IdeaMarketers.com
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