Living Room

What is the best approach to lighting a living room?

So much goes on in a living room, from relaxing, entertaining and socialising, reading, watching television that it is a good idea to plan your lighting on a piece of graph paper to plan to scale where you want to place key pieces of furniture.

Then work out and mark where you really need your lighting installed. It’s frustrating to realise afterwards that you needed a light in one corner when you either left or installed a socket in the opposite one. It’s at the outset, for example, that you can plan to set a socket into the floor so that you can place a floor lamp in the middle of the room without having to have a trail of flex across it.

Aim to use a variety of light sources to create pools or different levels of light around the room. You will need a source of lighting for ambient light (which is overall light) for general use. This may come from a central pendant but you will need to add to this with uplighters, floor, table or wall lights to give you flexibility with your lighting and allow you to create the levels of light and atmosphere you want. There is nothing more soulless than a living room lit by a single pendant light.

You may need a task light such as a floor or desk lamp for reading or sewing by. Swing arm lamps such as floor, wall or table lamps are useful for this, or an uplighter lamp with a reading (see our Floor lamp section).

Have these fitted by your electrician to separate wiring circuits and use them with dimmer switches for maximum flexibility. Remember, though, that you must use low voltage dimmer switches on any low voltage fittings; you cannot fit a mains voltage dimmer so check before you buy.