Shine some light into the room with innovative illumination

CENTRAL pendant lights huddled to the ceiling and with little more than a modesty shade to hide a single bald bulb?

Even with lamps below daubing golden highlight into shadowy corners, setting any light as a lone ranger in the centre of a ceiling is highly inefficient as a light source for just about every room. In a small living room there was always the additional treat of a traditional chandelier. Set on a low ceiling or a standard modern house, the scale of even a smaller piece which relies on a length of chain for authenticity is destroyed. Behold the strangled spider creaking out press-ups off an undersized ceiling rose. I’m not a fan of recessed lighting studding the ceiling as general lighting — it’s so corporate, but that’s just me. There’s so much more we can do in concert with a full layer of lighting with ceiling mounted design.

Swing Low

Lighting is the most important element of a room’s ingredients after colour. Ceiling lights once abruptly dealt with as a practical apology in general lighting can boldly cross boundaries into function and feature light. Waisted rockabilly 50s metal shades, fat pottery bells, flared dishes developed from industrial use, and ethereal Scandinavian panel lights pared wood can take flight. Even swapping out a lampshade on a ceiling fitting should create excitement and real change. The shift that makes all the difference between sad and sophisticated is positioning, which now presents the entire form of the lamp housing and softens the flat leery shadows we formerly suffered in a central fitting.

We Irish are oddly brave in the kitchen and bathroom when it comes to overcoming our traditional stayed notions of design and furnishing. Go beyond ambient glow. Don’t save those lighting bars, rails, cables and multiple pendants for the kitchen— take them to your living and upstairs areas too.

What you see is what you get with a great light and it’s important to see your potential choice in a room setting, at a height that would suit your space. Will you be looking at the sides or the underside of the housing when it’s in place?

Illuminating Tips

* Follow the pattern of the function areas in the room and multiply the ceiling lights in spot, rail or pendant form set to dimmer switches shake off a bleak interrogation room look. Isolate switches for multiples to save energy.

* Bold modern Italian ceiling lights entirely glass, glazed panels, wood or chrome intended to sit flush to the ceiling- throw dynamic shadows (see Shane Holland’s Marz series for inspiration alone). These are often far more successful than an intrusive chandelier.

* Wall lights are the second natural element for general lighting. If you want uplighters, then examine the pattern of light they throw as this is more dominant than the lights once they are switched on.

* Pipe-shaped wall washers are quiet inclusions gleaned from the 1960s, and popular for even classically styled rooms throwing plumes of light up and down on the wall. For hotel-chic, marry wall lights loosely in style and materials to wall lights.

* Lights set closer to the ceiling allow it to bounce soft light down and around the room, reducing glare. Balance a ceiling uplighter style with other light sources to enjoy its shape which otherwise, can be lost in shadow.

* Wall and ceiling colour can devour and alter the tint of artificial light, so consider your scheme choices in concert with the lighting plan.

* Drop pendants boldly into the space, over islands, tables, desks and seating areas on a wire or chain. With a surface below (a bed, desk, etc.) you don’t have to walk under the light, so it can descend to head height or deeper. Consider where your head might pass even occasionally.

* Ensure any ceiling element and wiring compliments the light as a complete show. A heavy light should not depend solely on the electrical cable for support and may he intended for a rod or chain.

* Go bespoke with high street buys. Break a single light source into a bouquet of staggered shades or set them along a bar for a dining table or island (Tom Dixon’s Beat lights are stunning in multiples www.tomdixon.net)

* Keep in mind that as any barrel shaped light comes down from the ceiling, its beam will become more focused, so imagine how that will influence your lighting needs and the illumination plan as a whole. Translucent materials will diffuse and share more light than opaque shading.