Alison Goldman is an editor, writer, and TV binge-watcher based in Chicago. She’s held editorial positions at Boston.com, WomensHealthMag.com, and Glamour magazine. She’s also worked as a full-time freelance journalist, crafting lifestyle and culture content with an emphasis on women’s issues for publications including Cosmopolitan, The Lily from The Washington Post, The Boston Globe Magazine, and Chicago Magazine. She is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
The right pendant light can transform the look of a living room, kitchen, bedroom, or bathroom. An oversized dining room pendant light brings a dramatic sense of formality to the table. A sculptural ceiling light adds an artistic element to a living room design scheme. Kitchen island pendant lights help to stylishly define a breakfast bar, and bathroom light fittings bring an atmospheric glow. To help you choose a piece that will best complement your home, we’ve put together this collection of 51 pendant lights that drop style into any setting. Here, you’ll find colourful glass designs, industrial style fixtures, metal farmhouse shades, boho rattan domes, and much more.
Sarah writes about all things shopping for Apartment Therapy, The Kitchn, and Cubby helping you find the best deals and the best products for you and your home. A Brooklyn-born Jersey Girl, she loves a good playlist, a good bagel, and her family (but not necessarily in that order).
Looking for ways to brighten your home is a goal for many homeowners, and not only does it make things easier for you to see but generally boosts your mood, the ability to relax, and overall wellness. Before you renovate your home, here are a few things that you could do or consider planning to add more light to your room.
1. Add accessories to rooms
Photo by Spacejoy on Unsplash
By adding reflective, metallic, glass, and mirrored accessories and objects into your rooms (especially mirrors) you will be making use of all the available natural light that is entering your home as well as any synthetic light created by your lights. These objects will bounce and reflect all available light around each room, almost guaranteeing to make them feel brighter and creating the illusion of extra space.
2. Install sliding patio doors
If you have a patio or are considering installing a patio, you could add large sliding patio doors onto your property to maximize the amount of natural light that will enter your home. You can also add patio door blinds if you are concerned about your privacy or just want to be able to control the amount of light that enters the room at any time.
A simple change you can implement into your home is painting your rooms brighter colours. If you are a fan of feature walls or you simply don’t want the whole room to be painted bright colours, you can also just figure out which wall the most light falls on and then paint this wall the brightest colour as this will then help disperse the natural light entering your home.
4. Choose the right flooring
You can alter your flooring to become more reflective too by swapping out the carpet for other materials such as polished wood, ceramic tiles, or laminate flooring, all of which will help brighten a room with natural light. If you prefer carpet, then similarly to painting a room, stick to lighter colours.
5. Maintenance around your property
A few easy steps to allowing more natural light into your property could include clearing unneeded clutter from your windowsill and windows, cleaning your windows, or even trimming and cutting any trees and shrubs that may be outside your windows that are blocking the light from entering.
6. Install skylights
Image Credit – Katie Brown Kitchens
Depending on how your property is laid out you may be able to add a skylight into a room that requires a lot of light, for instance, most people opt for this installation above their kitchens.
7. Add extra lights
Another easy fix to make it lighter in your home is to add extra light sources, such as a table or floor lamps. These can also be controlled via dimmer switches, allowing you full control of the amount of light you have available. Pay attention to where the darkest areas of your rooms are when planning where you will place these.
If you’re looking for lights for your home, then LED battens are a suitable choice for many interior needs. This modern fixture type is similar to fluorescent tubes, but uses modern technology to for a more efficient and long-lasting lighting experience.
Fluorescent tubes used to be popular in residential settings, but were high maintenance, cost a lot and used a lot of energy consumption to run. With the introduction of LED battens, things have changed and they’ve taken over in popularity for use in home interiors.
Lighting ideas
You can use the functionality of LED battens to get creative with batten lights in your home. Here are 5 ideas to consider:
Backlights: when you want to make a statement in any part of the home, like the kitchen, consider adding an LED backlight. You can place the LED batten behind a surface to illuminate it. This is one of the best ways of turning the room’s atmosphere and enhancing the overall look.
Consider using it as a night light: instead of the regular bedhead, you can pick a LED batten to act as the nightlight and offer the best design statement. There are options with a dimmer switch or dimmer light setting that can help you control the mood and brightness.
Add LED battens in corridors: to light up hallways or landings. If you have photos, art or other accessories on the corridor walls, brightening the area with a LED batten is a great idea. This is one of the best ways to show off your designs and memories.
Installations in the living area and other areas for space illusion: when you feel like a room is short of style and size, you should think of a good way to inspire it. When you place LED battens the right way, especially on raised panels on the wall, the space tends to be enlarged visually. This means that a room may look much bigger than it is. Lighting adds a great ambiance and sophistication.
Displays: a LED batten is the best choice when you want to brighten a display. If you have an open shelf display within the home, you can spice it up by adding a batten light. LED battens can illuminate an area and highlight key features within your home. Since you can choose the appropriate intensity, you can easily highlight your photos, collectibles, and other objects you treasure. Light gives the objects the limelight they deserve.
With the right ideas, there is a lot you can achieve with led batten lights. This improved technology allows you to enjoy the best lighting option regardless of what you want to achieve within your space. With a little creativity, you can achieve so much in your home design.
To have the best results, you need high-quality battens, such as Morris batten LEDs. They are energy efficient, offer bright light, are safe for the eyes, and do not flicker, plus you get the benefit of a manufacturer’s warranty of three years. The good thing is that LED battens need less maintenance and the average life expectancy is much higher, so they should last longer and be more efficient than older lighting products.
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Inspired by a vintage silhouette, this art deco mushroom lamp will light up your bedside table in one of eight color variations, including striped and plain finishes.
