We all have different ideas about what makes a home cosy, and here, lighting has a big role to play. Lighting is not just lighting – lighting helps set the mood, and that is what makes the right indoor lighting so important. At Nordlux, we have a wide range of indoor lighting. We make a point of staying updated on our needs in the home, and then develop indoor lighting which can meet those needs.
Lighting plays a major role in our daily lives, both in our work and when we take time off. For instance, having the right indoor lighting is important when sitting in a comfortable chair with an exciting book, spending hours at the dining table in the company of good friends, working intensely by the desk, or reading bedtime stories in the children's room. All of these activities require the appropriate lighting in order for the atmosphere to be just right.
At Nordlux, we are Scandinavia's leading manufacturer of indoor lighting and offer a wide range of indoor lighting. We have more than 40 years of experience and take pride in being at the forefront, in terms of both design and technological developments in indoor lighting. For example, we monitor developments in LED technology closely due to the constant changes and improvements being made to the LED bulbs in our indoor light fixtures.
Aarhus-based architect and designer Henrik Bønnelycke gives us his thoughts on how best to place indoor light fixtures to achieve the best lighting in the home. Where and how you place your indoor light fixtures matters, if you want to enjoy the full benefit of the light.
In order to create the right lighting for a home, it is important that considerations of light are involved in the building process as early as possible. But not everything can be arranged in advance. One must also live in the house and be open to the idea that lighting is an ongoing process – light fixtures must be able to be moved, added, and removed.
One knows whether one should do something about current lighting conditions by asking a relevant question: "Do I enjoy being here? Does the light diffuse nicely? Am I relaxed? Does the light reach this corner? Is there enough light, if I want to read?" Of course, you should only do something about the indoor lighting, if your answer to one or more of the following questions is ‘no’.
Choose a warm light above the dining table, i.e. 2700-3000 degrees Kelvin, and a colder, more colourfast light for the bathroom mirror, i.e. 3000-4000 degrees Kelvin. Preferably light which comes from both sides. It is also fine if home work light fixtures have a slightly colder light – up to 4000 degrees kelvin, which mimics daylight. The package specifies which colour of light is emitted by the light source.
Many people hang their indoor light fixtures too high. We see it often in children's rooms, where many people have an idea that a light fixture should illuminate the entire room and therefore it needs to be hung high. Instead, I suggest that you use multiple light fixtures so there are lights for different purposes. When hanging light fixtures above the dining table, a lot of people seem to think that "we should be able to see each other". A good rule of thumb is to hang the lights 50 to 70 centimetres above the dining table – that is plenty of height. Only in very rare cases do you even need to hang the light higher than 60 centimetres.
In many homes, a centrally placed pendant light fixture hangs above the dining room table, and sometimes three smaller pendants are evenly distributed along the table. Often, the light fixtures are hung with too much distance between them – and become three floating spots rather than a unit. I suggest moving pendants together, so they hang as a group of two, three or more depending on the length of the table. If the light fixtures are 20-25 cm in diameter, I would hang them with a distance from the centre of the cord to the centre of the next cord of about 30-35 centimetres.
If, for example, you have three indoor light fixtures and one outlet, I recommend using a power strip which is kept free of the ceiling, so that it becomes part of the light fixtures. If you are not into power strips, you can feed all three cords from the ceiling rose into a ‘swan neck’ hook, if necessary. The cords should not be fastened to the ceiling with a stick-on tray or hidden in other ways, as that will not make them disappear. They should just hang loose in a soft arc, or you just run the risk of making them even more obvious.
