Lighting Up Time.

It’s not only furniture and furnishings that make a beautiful room or stunning plants that make a great garden – the lighting is equally important.

Clemency Ransford, Design Director at one the green explains why...

In my opinion, lighting is one of the most important and, yet, one of the most overlooked aspects of interior and garden design. It is possible, however, through clever manipulation of light and the correct planning, to transform the look of an ordinary room or garden.

I am always struggling to convince people to consider lighting first when redesigning or redecorating. Of course, it is much easier to concentrate on the obvious aspects of a room or garden such as pain colours, new furniture and, in the case of a garden, planting or hard landscaping. Yet a beautiful decorated room can be ruined by lack of forethought regarding lighting, and the opportunity of using the garden as an extra room is lost if it is pitch black at night. A little forward planning with regards to the electrics at such an early stage can save thousands of pounds and achieve amazing results.

People are always shocked when I walk into a building site and ask them where they want to put their sofas and where will the artwork hang, and yet isn’t it important to know that you will have correct task lighting for reading the newspaper and that your priceless oil paintings/posters are well lit?

Developments in lighting technologies and design of fittings now allow for the most discreet solutions for all ages and styles of houses while maintaining maximum dramatic visual impact. This means that old houses with lathe-and-plaster ceilings need not be excluded from recessed low-voltage down-lights as there are specially-designed fittings to cope, and low ceilings can be fitted with low-glare solutions. In a barn conversion, for example, spotlights can be colour matched to beams and are small enough to be ‘lost’ against the depth of the beam.

Decorative fittings like table lamps, chandeliers and wall lights create a visual lighting focus as well as soft pools of light, but should be used in conjunction with other sources to create more drama.