5 Design Tips to Light Your Home

5 Design Tips to Light Your Home

 Do you consider yourself a design artist – someone who possesses those innate characteristics of visual design? If you do, then you are one of those people strong in visual-spatial intelligence meaning you have a natural born gift to visualize things, recognize patterns and interpret pictures. You are easily able to learn and understand every aspect of design. You use a design perspective to look at the world and comprehend it. You are able to effortlessly use your creativity to make wonders work. For example, with the right tones, colors, shades and styles, you are able to transform a boring and unattractive place into a magical and inviting living environment.

On the other hand, there are people that are not strong in this area. They struggle with visual design and find it difficult to use it in their lives. They either are able to build those design skills little by little and apply them or simply realize they don't have a good sense of design taste and are completely clueless about design techniques. If you are unfortunate to have the necessary design talent or want to improve your design skills to decorate or redecorate your home, here are some design tips to guide you along the way.

Design Tips

Focal point:

When you walk into a room you should immediately focus your attention on one central, focal point. Think of it like this. Imagine the focal point as the main piece of a puzzle and the rest of the pieces are the decorations, furniture, lighting, etc. centered around that focal point. Start with the focal point when you're decorating a room. Then, incorporate everything else around that focal point to compliment it with color, position, style, etc. However, if you don't have a focal point, like a fireplace or a large window, you can create a focal point. Here are some ideas:

1. Create a focal point depending on what you want the room to be used for. If the room is to be used as a study room, put a bookshelf or a desk as the focal point and then add other items, decorations and furniture to compliment it.
2. Paint one wall a different color from the rest of the walls of the room. If the room is for a little girl, paint one wall pink and leave the rest of the walls white. Then, add accessories and furniture to compliment it.
3. Use a large object or decoration such as a painting, mirror or decal.
   

Measurement Rules:

Whether you're hanging curtains, arranging furniture, placing rugs or accommodating any other piece of decoration in the room, make sure you use precise measurements so that the room looks aligned and balanced. Here are some basic measurement rules to follow when decorating a room:

1. When positioning the television, the distance of the television from the furniture depends on the size of the T.V. The position of the T.V. from the furniture should be about the same as the diagonal size of your TV multiplied by two.
2. The distance between furniture and coffee tables should be between 15 to 18 inches apart.
3. When hanging pictures, paintings or any form of artwork, arrange it at eye level, 56 to 60 inches from the floor.
4. When placing art above furniture, it should be no more than two-thirds the width of the furniture.
5. The position of curtains depends on your desired look in width and height, how tall or wide you want the curtains to look. For height, place the curtain rods at least 4 inches but no more than 8 inches from the top of the window. For width, place them as little as 1 to 3 inches or as long as 12 inches on either side.
6. For rugs, you have 3 options: placing all four legs of a furniture on a rug, placing a rug without putting a piece of furniture on top of it or arranging a piece of furniture partially on a rug. Keep in mind that the position of rugs with furniture depends on the actual space the room has and/or how it looks best. If the rug is big enough within that particular space, you can place the entire furniture on top of the rug, making sure it is perfectly centered. If the area is small, use a smaller rug without placing a piece of furniture on top. You can also put only two legs of a furniture on a rug, creating a feeling of unity and openness.
   

Negative Space:

The negative space is the empty area of a room. Sometimes less is more so don't be afraid to use the negative space of a room. When using the negative space, remember the following:

1. Leave some room and prevent cluttering an area.
2. Use the negative space for a certain reason such as to create an interesting design or to enhance a decorated area.
3. Recognize different shapes formed by the position of furniture to create an appealing negative space.

In general, the use of a negative space is to look for areas of a room that look great even when they are not being used as well as thinking about its purpose between furniture and accessories.

Odd numbers:

It is a known fact that grouping objects in odd numbers on a surface create visual interest and harmony. They produce an appealing, peaceful, cozy feeling. According to this ¨rule of thirds¨, there should be something that all of the items share in common but at the same time, something that is different about each of them. It is also recommended to arrange objects in different sizes, heights, shapes and textures.

Lighting:

As you already know, lighting is an important factor to bring together the look and feel of a room. Incorporating different types of lighting and lighting fixtures create style, space and mood in a room. However, you should consider these three basic types of lighting for decoration: accent, task and ambient. Accent lights serve to highlight an area or a particular object such as a picture lamp to emphasize the attention on a picture or painting. Task lights are used for a certain purpose. For example, lights under kitchen cabinets are used to light countertops or a lamp on a nightstand is used to produce light for reading or a piano lamp on a piano to read music and to play. Ambient or general lighting is used to brighten up and evenly light up a room. Start with ambient lights and then add task and accent lights to the room.

Start with these basic rules when decorating your home or a room. Then, rearrange it according to your own design preference. Don't hesitate to add or take away elements, decorations or even furniture to make it your own. After all, this is your home and you should feel comfortable with the overall look. These design principles are only to help you to get started to put the pieces together to create an appealing style and to light up your home but work with them around your desired look.

Conclusion

With over 50 years of experience, Cocoweb is dedicated to providing the finest in designer lighting products. We’ve carefully crafted our entire selection of lighting products with our team of in-house design professionals to be the very best in modern design. When you install a Cocoweb fixture, you can be sure that it won’t simply light up a room, but instead blend in seamlessly with your décor, inside and out. We have a variety of lighting products suitable for your home such as piano lamps, picture lights, and more.