Lighting Your Home For Christmas

Christmas is rushing ever closer, and whether you have your decorations up already or you wait until the last minute, it’s time to think about how you want your home to look over the festive season.

Whilst the holiday season is set to look a little different this year, it is still worth thinking about the decorations and lighting.

Christmas is very personal, and an effective interior lighting design will reflect this. A specialist lighting design service can also help to effectively integrate holiday designs and decorations into a look that can last beyond December.

Here are some ideas for how to light your home this Christmas.

Enhance Your Present Style

It is very easy to get carried away when it comes to redecorating for Christmas and substantially change your interior style and lighting philosophy, but that does not necessarily have to be the case.

Your interior design is often very personal, as is Christmas and so Christmas lights and decorations should serve to complement each other.

For example, if you have a somewhat natural interior style such as hygge, your decorations should also be fairly neutral, made of natural materials and include plenty of greenery. Adding string lights to plants and other decorations would fit your style very well in this case.

If you tend towards more muted, softer lights, make sure any lights you add help to accentuate this look, otherwise, it will be rather more distracting.

Design Around The Tree

Lighting is best considered as a sculptural object in itself; each light you choose is a statement piece to catch people’s attention. The humble Christmas tree, however you style it, design it or decorate it, is the statement lighting piece for your room.

A good way to design your lighting for Christmas is to start with the tree, and how you want it to look then plan for ways to complement it in the rest of your room and indeed the rest of your home.

Choosing between an artificial or natural tree is largely a matter of taste, but it is best to choose a tree without lights already added. Adding your own lighting touches is very important as it ensures that your tree’s lighting design matches the rest of your room.

Consider Colour Temperature

The mood of your lighting is important at most times of year but it is especially important at Christmas. As studies have shown in other areas, both the colour and the temperature of your light can have a major effect on the overall look of your home.

There are a lot of variations depending on what type of light bulbs you use, but in general, the lower the temperature, the warmer and softer the lighting will look, paradoxically.

Typically, albeit not always, a warmer looking light is ideal for Christmas settings, which is why candles, fireplaces and other sources of very low-temperature light make your home feel so welcoming and cosy.

It is possible to use brighter lights of a higher colour temperature, particularly if you have a brighter, more minimalist colour scheme. Choose the warmth of lighting that fits your style.