Author Archives: Chad

More than likely your home has different types of lighting, each of which helps you manage and enjoy the many aspects of everyday living. Ambient, accent, and task lighting are the main types illuminating the interior of your home. However, the objective is the same – to make it easy to see regardless of the time or the weather.

Ambient Lighting

You’ll find ambient lighting fixtures on the ceilings in kitchens, baths, closets, hallways and sometimes bedrooms. Builders often install a lone light fixture in the middle of a garage ceiling. Sometimes the lighting fixtures are basic globes, but you’ll also find them as more elaborate fixtures in foyers or adjustable track lights in kitchens.

These light fixtures broadcast enough light over a room to make everything visible. They won’t highlight any particular area. Consequently, they cast shadows on objects that sit on the floor or walls beneath them. Builders or lighting specialists often hard-wire ambient lights to a wall light switch just inside the door for instant lighting.

Best Uses for Ambient Lighting

Ambient lights play an important role in safety and basic home functionality. Naturally dark spaces like kitchen pantries or walk-in closets without overhead lighting are difficult to use even during the daytime.

Ambient lighting upgrades include track lighting in kitchens and chandeliers placed in foyers and dining rooms. Decorative pendant lighting is a more informal style for these areas, as are recessed can lights.

Task Lighting

The effectiveness of task lighting depends on having different types of lighting in the same room. Combining under cabinet task lighting in kitchens or wet bars illuminates the countertops. Task lights are often freestanding in the shape of desk lamps and floor lamps, fixed or swing-arm, however, they can be hung under cabinets or from the ceiling. You should use ambient lighting with task lights to better illuminate the work you’re doing close-up.

Best Uses for Task Lighting

Placed on tables, desks, or next to chairs, task lighting is essential for detailed work like reading and handcrafts. Hung over work tables or desks, task lights provide ample illumination for work that requires accuracy day or night.

Cooking in a kitchen with task lighting is much easier and safer than using ambient lighting alone. While battery-operated light strips or spotlights are available for under-cabinet use, they require frequent battery changes and their mounting brackets wear out over time.

Accent Lighting

Of all the different types of lighting, accents lights are the least common in homes as standard features. Use accent lighting to illuminate artwork, musical instruments, or cabinet displays. People who decorate for the holidays often unwittingly use accent lighting in the yards when they string lights along their roof lines or thread them through their shrubbery.

Best Uses for Accent Lighting

Accent lights call attention to objects that hang from walls or sit on the floor. They can highlight your favorite photographs, artwork, or a piano. Outdoors, accent lighting enhances landscaping year-round and makes the yard more usable after dark by illuminating walkways and steps.

Upgrading Lighting Fixtures

Adding lighting fixtures that will add functionality and beauty to your home and yard require the services of a licensed electrician. At Turn It On Electric, our electricians are licensed and highly skilled. Wiring is a complicated home improvement project that affects your personal safety and that of your home.

To learn more about improving the different types of lighting in your home, contact the pros at Turn It On Electric today.

Have you ever wanted to increase the lighting or reduce shadows in the bathroom or kitchen? It\’s amazing what good lighting can do to help you get ready in the morning. But, to do it right, you may need to change or enhance your existing lighting scheme. As a rule, the original lighting scheme in most bathrooms just meets the basic requirements.

Fortunately, plenty of choices are available that will turn the lighting into an attractive and fully functional system. One that helps you perfect the look of both your personal appearance and the bathroom itself.

Lighting and Bathroom Zones

Some bathrooms are purely functional rooms with lighting schemes to match. An overhead light in a bathroom does allow you to see, but it casts shadows on everything below it. Other than providing basic illumination, this type of lighting does nothing to enhance the room or its occupants.

Master suite bathrooms, especially among newer homes, may contain an enclosed toilet with a lone light fixture on the ceiling. If the ceiling plate is nine feet or higher, even a bright bulb won’t provide enough light in this space.

A master bathroom with double sinks in the vanity typically has a light strip centered between the sinks. This doesn\’t adequately illuminate the whole vanity top. And if the builder installed a sitting desk between the sinks for applying makeup or styling hair, the lighting is likely in need of a serious upgrade.

Large master bath suites may have recessed lighting in the areas over the water closet, the tub and shower, and the dressing areas. While recessed lighting does a good job of illuminating the floor and horizontal surfaces, it does nothing to reduce shadows. In fact, it creates more shadows than any other kind of bathroom lighting.

Lighting Principles to Reduce Shadows

Whether it’s in a photo studio or your bathroom, light behaves predictably. Follow these guidelines when observing the lighting in your home:

• Lights that shine straight down create shadows.
• The further the light is away from the mirror or your seating area, the dimmer it gets.
• Diffused lighting scatters light waves throughout the room and effectively reduces shadows.
• Lighting from the side emphasizes the objects it strikes directly, which is great for detailed work like hair styling or putting on makeup.

Lighting and Electrical Specialists

When you’re considering making upgrades to reduce shadows in the bathroom or a kitchen, the two rooms that must be as functional as possible, it’s a good idea to work with lighting experts who are also licensed electricians. Both rooms have a good deal of exposure to water and safety is paramount. In fact, the National Electrical Code has separate provisions for wiring in bathrooms and kitchens.

The bathroom, especially, is a compact space where sinks, showers, and tubs may be within a short distance from electrical receptacles and switches. It’s also a place where trailing wires from hair dryers, shavers, or space heaters should be carefully considered.

At Turn It On Electric, we know what kinds of lighting fixtures will give you the best results to reduce shadows. When we combine the right light fixture with positioning and globe materials, it has a dramatic impact on your living space.

Lights mounted on each vertical side of the mirror will eliminate the shadows and give you a truer reflection of your appearance. We can also show you other upgrades like dimmer switches that make bathrooms more convenient and enjoyable.

Contact Turn It On Electric for an estimate on new lighting in your bathroom or kitchen today.