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Options For Lighting Your Home

Thanks to advances in materials science and other techno-wizardry, your lighting design options today are, well, blinding. Any look you want, for any part of the home with any layout is available.

Here are some guidelines and choices...

First and foremost, when shopping keep in mind any electrical codes and the limitations of your home. Many families today are refurbishing beautiful older homes. These elegant houses were often well built, but wiring systems were not what they are today.

You may have to contact a contractor to help decide whether to replace that older wiring system. At minimum, you'll need to take measurements and develop a list of usage (loads), circuit breakers, etc. Find out what your system can handle before you start loading it up.

Fortunately today, installing newer systems can actually mean consuming less electricity while providing more illumination.

Compact fluorescent bulbs, for example, can now reproduce a very natural color balance while consuming 30% less electricity. Gone are the days of the greenish overcast. They're made in a variety of shapes, sizes and amounts of illumination.

LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights are the latest rage, and for good reason. Despite being more expensive to purchase, they're actually more economical in the long run, thanks to their long lifetimes.

Some are rated to last as long as 35 years. Few will want to keep the same lighting design for that long, but a bulb that lasts 5-7 years would certainly come in handy. One type (Enlux) is rated at 50,000 hours and consumes only 22 watts. Burning 24 hours per day every day, it would last almost six years. Ideal for porch lights, or that dark corner area you want to brighten up.

For an ultra-modern option look to something like Light Transmitting Concrete. Yes, concrete. LiTraCon blocks can provide a unique look, with light given off by embedded fiber optics that transmit light when the brick is backlit.

A similar technique is used in Luminex fabric. The cloth comes in a variety of weights and colors and provides a very soft illumination via a mesh of optical fibers woven into the fabric. The fibers are connected to LEDs and a power source. Perfect for the bedroom.

Rooms differ in their lighting profile. Most people want bathrooms that are bright and cheery, but still suitable for shaving and applying makeup. Bedrooms are often designed with more subdued lighting. Living rooms require a dynamic profile from bright and even to indirect and soft. Whatever style or type you select you'll want to keep some simple 'lighting physics' in mind.

Natural light causes objects to appear as they do in large part because of its 'temperature', measured in degrees Kelvin. (The Kelvin scale is identical to Celsius, just offset by 273 degrees.) A northern sky under clear conditions at noon will be around 7,000K-8,000K.

Bulbs often provide light that looks unnatural because they generally have lower 'color temperatures'. A regular fluorescent bulb is around 4,000K while incandescents are about 2,800K.

Selecting one of the modern types can help you more closely approach that natural lighting temperature, if that's your goal. To get a softer, more 'candlelight' look go for recessed lighting and lower temperature profiles.

Explore some of the new options modern science has put at your design fingertips, just be sure not to get burned!