What is mood lighting?
Think about your favourite boutique hotel, the one you’d like to return to again and again. Transport yourself to that unforgettable country pub, beautiful restaurant, or glamorous champagne bar you spotted on Insta. While they might all be decorated differently, the chances are they’ll share one thing: a well-planned lighting scheme, using a mixture of task, accent and mood lighting. Effective, efficient lighting has the power to transform your home, defining and improving perception of space, highlighting design schemes and creating atmosphere and interest – that’s where mood lighting comes in.
How to plan mood lighting in your home
Mood lighting’s purpose is to create a specific atmosphere or feeling in your home. While a central pendant light placed in the middle of the room may do the job of illuminating the entire space, it won’t give you that mood-boosting welcome in the way a warm pool of light from a well-positioned wall or table light will. Ideally, plan your lighting at the earliest stages, but if you’ve already decorated and want to transform your lighting scheme without any installation costs, the good news is that mood lighting is still easily achievable. As well as the obvious floor and table lights, our catalogue includes a number of plug-in or clip-on wall lights, all variations on our classic bone china Hector range.
Mood lighting for bedrooms
Dimmers are an essential ingredient when it comes to mood lighting, so if you’re choosing a central pendant for your bedroom, make sure to have it installed on dimmers. Ideally, combine your pendant with a pair of table or wall lights on either side of your bed. Natural bone china is the perfect choice for bedrooms thanks to its delicate opacity and inherent warmth. There’s really no better material for bringing a gentle, ambient glow and sense of cosiness and comfort.
Mood lighting for kitchens
With the demise of dining rooms and the rise of eat-in kitchens, your kitchen lighting needs to work harder than ever. The good news is, our catalogue includes a number of rise and fall pendants, such as our Conical and Christie. Simply raise high for a broad spread of task light during the daytime, then drop low for atmosphere come evening.
Mood lighting for living rooms
Mood lighting is not only achieved by specific types of light fittings or materials. The right mood or ambience can also be created by how and where you position your fittings. Rather than installing in the middle of the room, consider hanging pendants low over sofas or dining tables to create dramatic or intimate seating ‘zones’. Here, the placement of our bone china Fin Pendants creates a beautifully inviting spot to sip a warm drink or glass of wine, book in hand….
Mood lighting for bathrooms
Lighting is the best way to create a cocooning, atmospheric bathroom. Often the only room in the house with no natural light, your lighting scheme must be carefully considered to make the most of the space, as well as your enjoyment of it. There’s nothing less relaxing than the glare of overly bright lights bouncing off white tiles and shiny surfaces! As with any room, you need shadow-free task lighting for shaving and applying make-up, and mood lighting for when you simply want to lie back in the bath and relax. Ideally, all your lights should be controlled separately and on dimmers, so you can switch on and off and up and down as the mood takes you.
