How to Improve Your Home Lighting (in 30 minutes and don’t break your budget)

How’s your home lighting? Does it feel harsh? Do your eyes get tired in the evenings? Is your kitchen too dark to work in in the evenings?

These are common lighting issues many homes have. After you are done reading this post you will be ready to focus on improving your home lighting.

I offer you a simple action plan to substantially improve your home lighting. You will thank yourself once you are finished and your home will be a place to recharge and relax like you always wanted it to be.

In this post, I would like to offer you three areas to focus on to solve your home lighting problems so you can take it in stride.

I call them the Basic (The Best light bulbs for your home), the Upgrade (Installing Lighting Control System), and Going the extra mile (under the cabinet lighting).

However, all of them can be done with just basic knowledge, no electrician necessary.

The Basic: Best light bulbs for home

Let’s begin with the Basic and figure out the best light bulbs for your home. Installing correct light bulbs won’t cost too much, but will go a long way in improving lighting in your home.

First, let’s troubleshoot:

• are your lights too bright and create harsh shadows on people’s faces?
• do your eye hurts in the evenings?
• do you have only one ceiling light and you want to make sure your room has enough light?
• did you buy the brightest light bulb because you want more light in your room?

If you have answered yes to one or more of those questions, it’s very likely you will need to replace your light bulbs.

Check out this post, to find more detailed and technical information about choosing light bulbs.

However, if you prefer quick solutions, below I am providing recommendations for specific light bulbs to use in each situation that I’ve mentioned before.

Now let’s look for solutions to the troubleshooting question:

Your light is too bright and it creates harsh shadows on people’s faces.

Most likely the Lumens are too high. Replacing your lightbulbs with these should solve the problem.

When ordering keep in mind that you want to stay in the 3000-4000 Kelvins range and around 1100 lumens.

If you are ordering these light bulbs for the dining room table chandelier, go for 800 lumens. You don’t want lights glaring at you in the evening as you are trying to unwind during a relaxing family dinner.

Your eyes hurt in the evenings.

Again, most likely that your lights are too bright. However, another solution might be buying dimmable lightbulbs and installing a dimmer switch.

If you need a little help installing the switch, there is a great step-by-step tutorial by Home Depot.

You have only one ceiling light and you want to make sure that your room has enough light

If you have only one ceiling light and you want your room to have enough light, you need to buy the brightest light bulb you can find. The more lumens the better. Right? Wrong!

That might seem counter-intuitive, but you still need to stay around 1100 lumen. Instead of buying the brightest light bulb, trying layering on the lights.

Invest in a floor lamp or a coffee table lamp

A floor lamp and/or a coffee table lamp, will not only add more light to your room, but it will also serve as a decor element in your space. Win-win any way you look at it!

You bought the brightest light bulb, because you want more light in your room

When it gets to light, more is not better. Similar to the situation with one ceiling light or even no ceiling lights (pretty common in older houses and apartments) in some cases, layering on light is the answer.

If there are no ceiling lights in your room, create at least two light sources. Two coffee table lamps or a floor lamp and a coffee table combination will do the trick.

Replacing halogen can light with LED will make a huge difference. Here is a post on that: LED replacement kit for halogen bulb

The Upgrade: Home lighting automation

I call this the Upgrade, because of the order of importance, not the price point. You will want to address the light bulb situation in your house first.

After you’ve addressed your light bulbs, automating your home lighting is a super affordable and easy way to upgrade your home.

Imagine controlling your lights from your phone any time: when you are away, in bed, or simply don’t feel like getting up. Or even speaking to your lights (if you have Alexa).

The best thing about this home lighting automation is that you won’t need any tools to install it. Just a simple plugin and an app on the phone.

With the plugin, you can pre-program your lights to turn off and on at sunrise and sunset. You can have your lights turns on for you when you return home from work. You can turn them on when you are away for safety reasons, to make it look like you are home.

Automating your home lighting system has never been easier than now.

Going the Extra Mile: Under the cabinet lighting

Oftentimes, the ceiling lights in the kitchen are positioned in the middle of the room, so if you are working on the countertop in the evening, you are creating shadows over your work area with your body. Sounds familiar?

Unfortunately, this kitchen lighting situation is more common than you would think.

In many years working on designing kitchens for my clients, I haven’t yet met anyone yet who wouldn’t want a good under the cabinet lighting.

In fact, under cabinet lighting is one of the top requests I get from my clients when designing a kitchen.

Under cabinet lighting is well worth the investment

Installing cabinet lighting is getting easier and more affordable and that’s good news. You can even find systems that are battery-operated or can be taped to the bottom of the cabinet so they won’t damage the cabinet.

Additional light source

Under the cabinet lighting will create an additional lighting option for your kitchen. For example, if you don’t want bright light as soon as you wake up in the morning to make yourself a cup of coffee, touchless, dimmable under the cabinet lighting is an answer for you.

Better light for your work area

Under-cabinet lighting solves the problem of shadow on your countertop work area. Now you don’t have to worry about blocking the light with your back and your work area will always be well lit.

Upgrades your whole kitchen

Under-cabinet lighting gives your whole kitchen a custom-made look. It is the cheapest and easiest way to make your kitchen look 100% better, beat by only doing the dishes. That would be number one. Ha-ha-ha.

Not just for kitchen cabinets

Once you see the difference under cabinet lighting makes you won’t want to stop in the kitchen.

Installing under-cabinet lighting in a closet, under shelves, and even to light up a toe kick will transform your house.

Conclusion

As you can see, you can update your home lighting on the budget by switching your light bulbs, automating your home lighting system, and installing under cabinet lights in the kitchen. Each of those tasks should take less than 30 minutes but will make a huge difference in the long run.

What are you planning to focus on to improve your house lighting? I would love to hear from you in the comments about your plans.

Would you like to get more ideas about your lighting? Check out this post about designing bathroom lighting and doing it right.

Also if you are building a new home, you will find this new home construction electrical walk-through checklist helpful.

Do you need more help? We can help you.

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