Lighting Ideas for the Home

It’s the time of year when the nights start closing in and the Danish ideal state of ‘hygge’ which is best translated into English as ‘a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being’ (thank you Oxford English Dictionary) starts to seem very appealing indeed. Many of us turn to an evening dram of single malt or a cup of hot cocoa by the fire, but few things can match a spot of well-chosen lighting. Lighting around the home come autumn and winter is really brought into the forefront of our minds as we notice those rooms that are gloomy or even outside the house worry about darkly lit corners and recesses where those Halloween ghouls could be lurking! So, it is the perfect time to come up with a few ideas of how to shoot towards hygge and banish the winter blues while autumn is still in full flow.

Let’s take a look at the outside of your home first. These days there are so many fantastic options for garden and outdoor lighting, but few come close to soffit lighting for producing such a beautiful and reassuring effect, while remaining discreet and very classy. There is soffit lighting for all manner of outdoor requirements and soffit lights can be integrated in wood without any problem.

One particularly great way to deploy soffit lighting is recessed in the eaves. The polished aluminium housing looks simply stunning in contrast to the painted eaves and you will be delighted with the subtle, reassuring glow of a 3500k LED. The average lamp life is 35,000 hours, making this kind of lighting affordable and environmentally sustainable, not to mention reducing the hassle of frequently changing outdoor bulbs (which let’s be honest is an often-neglected job). Soffit down lighting is a great way of illuminating the area around an outdoor garage or store room – generating a feeling of security that is necessary for us all.

Inside the home, after we feel safe and secure, we have a platform from which hygge can spring. One of the most neglected and yet important rooms in many houses, so far as lighting is concerned is the bathroom. What could be more conducive to a cosiness and conviviality than a nice hot bath with all the smelling salts you have to hand and a good book in your hand. You need to have the sort of flexible lighting for the full hygge effect that bathroom downlights can provide.