When you build a custom home, you go through that extra effort to have complete control over every design aspect. While you explore new floor plans, look for different furnishing options and decide on the decor, it’s important to pay a bit of attention to the lighting scheme for your new home.
Lighting isn’t just functional. It decides the overall vibe and ambience of a room and can even shift the focal point of the room. When you partner with a custom home builder in Kelowna, they can recommend new designs and schemes for illuminating your new home in the best possible way.
Tips for lighting your new Okanagan custom home:
Types of lighting
Home lighting can be categorised into three primary types – Ambient, task and accent. Think of these lighting options as layers that can be arranged to add more depth and detail inside your home. For instance, bulbs on ceiling fixtures, LED strips and batons that illuminate the entire room are considered as ambient lighting. As the name suggests, they are responsible for crafting the ambiance of an entire room.
On the other hand, accent lighting draws your attention to a certain object, wall or a particular location in the room. For instance, if you have a prized painting and have decorated your room around it, you can make it the focal point and enhance the focal point with an accent light. Kelowna’s custom home builders prefer to use task lighting to help you do certain tasks. For instance, lighting under the kitchen cabinet to make the counter space brighter while you’re working.
Know your Kelvin
Photographers, artists, actors and everyone else in Hollywood and the fashion industry swear by lighting. Getting lighting perfect is very difficult if you don’t know how to set the tone. Colour temperature helps you set the tone of lighting and place it properly in different rooms. Kelvin is the unit for measuring colour temperature and the higher it goes, the closer it is to matching sunlight.
Home builders in Kelowna recommend sticking with the Kelvin range of 4500K or lower.
- Want a home office with a bright blue-white light that mimics sunlight and is quite common in corporate offices and commercial spaces? Then you can go over 4500K.
- For a warm and inviting glow in low-light areas like your wine cellar go below 2000K.
- For most bedrooms, dining rooms and living rooms, stay within the range of 2000K to 3000K for a soft and yellowish glow.
Choose LED lights
LEDs(Light Emitting Diode) help you save a lot of power and are available in all kinds of shapes and forms. LEDs usually aren’t compatible with dimmers in old homes and require additional driver support. However, Okanagan home builders can help you install these lights to make your home more energy efficient. On the other hand, if you’re building a new custom home, you don’t have to worry about compatibility.
Energy efficiency isn’t the only benefit of using LEDs. LED lights come with all kinds of features. You can buy bulbs that support different colour temperature settings. New homes in Kelownaalso come with smart lighting that can be controlled with an app or even voice command and have advanced features like scheduling and motion sensing.
Don’t forget about natural lighting
When the sun goes down, your lighting scheme truly shines. However, you should allow n as much natural sunlight as possible during the day time. Natural sunlight isn’t just good for your physical health, but elevates your mood as well. Figure out the orientation of your home. Rooms that face north or south will get more direct sunlight and hence may need fewer artificial lighting options during the day.
You can also get treated windows that help you control the amount of sun that enters those rooms. Use lighter tints on east and west facing windows and use thicker drapes in north and south facing rooms to control the amount of light you want to enter those rooms.
Consulting with builders for smart designs and integrating natural light maximises ambiance and energy efficiency for your dream home. While the interior lighting is very important and serves a more aesthetic purpose, it’s best to let custom home builders take the reins while deciding on exterior lighting. Otherwise, you may compromise on curb appeal, security and the way your landscaping looks.
