Can You Use Indoor Lights Outside?

Many homeowners like to decorate the outside of their homes for special occasions, like birthday parties and Christmas gatherings. More often than not, they will choose to use the fairy lights that they purchased to decorate their stair rail or to hang on their Christmas tree to do this. Are these indoor lights suitable for use outside, however? In most cases yes, providing that you take some precautions to protect them from the elements.

• Use the string lights in the covered entertaining areas of your property, like the patio and verandah. Instead of hanging them from the rafters (where they may be more exposed), consider draping them on your outdoor furniture.

• Use indoor lights to outline your home’s windows. Before doing this, however, you should check that your windows are fitted with a soffit that will shield the wiring from the elements. Adhere the wiring to the frame with staple gun.

• Use the string lights around your roof by hanging them directly below your gutters. This should provide the wiring with plenty of protection against the elements, and you should run the extension cord through a well-protected window to avoid shorting it out.

If you have accidentally purchased indoor lights for use in your outdoor decorations or you have been wondering whether the string fixtures that you hang on your Christmas tree can be used outside for a party, you can rest assured in the knowledge that this is safe. Just make sure that you follow the above tips to ensure that you are protecting the wiring from the elements.

Types of Ceiling Light that Can add Interest to Your House

Gone are those when ceiling lights were just a primary source of lighting a room. Today, the meaning of lighting house has changed as a whole. They are now a great way to set a mood, develop an attractive ambience and create a statement. Ceiling lights are available in endless and varieties and styles to fit individual choice. Some of the styles of ceiling fixtures you can find are…

Chandeliers: You can find these fixtures with five, six, eight and even more bulb fitting options. Basically they meant for living rooms and halls where you want to create a lively ambience. For smaller living rooms chandeliers with minimal light bulbs is appropriate and for larger rooms choice is all yours, either go for larger chandeliers or multiple small chandeliers.

Pendants: Pendant lights consist of single light bulb hanging from a wall through chain or designer rods. They are perfect option for bar or counters. However, they look awesome if used in living room corners to create a separate tiny and cozy seating arraignment.

Billiard lights: Billiard lights are not just for billiard boards, use them right over a dining table and create an interest. They are mainly comprised of more than two light bulbs in a row. They illuminate the table area and draw the focus all towards the table. Even when not use they look fabulous due to their design.

Flush mount: For a small bedroom flush mount is an ideal choice for perfect focal point and use as primary lighting. The major feature of this ceiling light is that they emit mild brightness and don’t stress your eyes. Apart from

How to Use Energy Saving Lights for Security Lighting

If you want to save energy and cut high electric bill for security lighting then energy saving lighting is the best option available today. These lights consume less energy, produce more brightness and reduce bill. There are various energy saving lights you can opt for, but none of them come cheaper, no matter whether you choose CFL bulbs, led bulb, or halogen bulbs. They all cost more than filament bulbs and life time is uncertain if current is fluctuating. Hence, even you are using these lights to save energy or bill, make sure you are cleaver enough to use them in the best possible way, especially when you are using it for security lighting. Here is how you can do it.

• Install overhead security lightings that are properly shielded. Shielding them will increase their brightness by concentrating the light despite of lower wattage. It will blend the brightness evenly and hence will prevent your lawn look like a stadium at night.

• Avoid using more bulbs than you actually need. Using more bulbs to gain excessive brightness will create discomfort to the eye hence will hamper visibility. Again don’t forget to get shield for the lights.

• If you want to leave your security light on overnight then install a motion sensor. This will allow bulbs to illuminate get on only when any motion is sensed and will get switched off automatically once movement stops.

• Also use timer or photovoltaic cell unit for walkway, security and porch lighting, so that lights will be turned on when it gets dark and then off automatically in the morning.

• Install security lights to the place where they can illuminate maximum area.

Using these tips, you can surely make maximum and better use of energy saving lightings.

A Guide To Choosing Table Lamps For Your Home

Believe it or not, there is actually more to choosing table lamps for your home than simply picking one out in a store and grabbing some globes on the way out; instead, you need to take into consideration how the lamp will be used and how it will match with the existing décor. Using these tips, you can ensure that you find a light that does all of the above with very little effort on your behalf:

• Where will you use the table lamp? Many lighting designers will actually create fixtures that are specific to certain locations, such as a home office or study, a living room, a bedroom or a hallway.

• How will the lamp be used? Determine whether the space requires task lighting (for reading, for example), ambient lighting (for establishing a particular mood), accent lighting (for drawing the eye to a particular element), or decorative lighting (for adding flair).

• What is the existing décor of the room like? You should allow the existing décor and furniture of the space to dictate what sort of lamp is ultimately chosen. Take elements from the room, such as material (wrought iron, glass, etc), colour (red, silver, etc), and shape (circles, squares, etc).

• How big is the table? For those that are quite wide, you should choose a light that has a larger base and for those that are narrow or small, you should choose a light with a long stem.

 

Once you have answered the above questions, you will be able to visit a lighting showroom and make an informed decision regarding the purchase of table lamps for your home. Don’t just simply grab the first lamp that you see; with some careful consideration, you could find a fixture that is more than just a light.

What Is The Difference Between Flush And Semi-Flush Ceiling Mounted Lighting?

When it comes to choosing ceiling mounted lighting, many homeowners are looking for fixtures that provide a room with adequate soft illumination; for the more directed task or accent lighting, they would instead by shopping for lamps or wall sconces. If you are looking for these particular fixtures for your home, you may be stunned at the amount of options open to you. Ceiling lighting is available in flush and semi-flush styles, but what is the difference between the two?

Flush Lighting

In this style, the fixture itself is mounted flush to the ceiling, so that there is no visible space between the fixture and the roof. Often, these fixtures look just like a globe sticking out of the roof and are often fitted with a shade. They are commonly found in bedrooms, kitchens, dining rooms and any other space you can think of.

Semi-Flush Lighting

In this style, the fixtures generally hang around 4 to 8 inches below the surface of the ceiling. They are often said to resemble a chandelier, however, they are considerably less ornate. They are commonly used in homes where the ceilings are too low for the installation of a pendant or chandelier to be viable.

It is important, however, that you don’t get these types of ceiling mounted lighting confused with other types. For example, semi-flush fixtures are often confused with pendants and chandeliers, but they differ in the fact that these other fixtures hang down much lower. Flush fixtures are also often confused for island or recessed lighting, the former being described as rod-mounted pendants and the later installed directly into the roof (also known as downlights).

How to Use Table Lamps to Enhance The Beauty of Your House

Gone are those days when table lamps were used just at the bed sides or on the study tables. Today, table lamps have emerged as a decorative piece to enhance the beauty of the home interior. Apart from just flashing light to brighten the interior, these lights are largely being used by the home interior decorators to enhance the home features. The best part of these lighting is that they are portable unlike chandelier, wall and pendent lights. Since they can be moved to any corner of the house, utilizing their abilities becomes easier and scope broader.

Transform your home by placing carefully and strategically to show different object of your house. Place tall table lamps with spot light to draw the attentions of your guests to the collectibles, photos frames, paintings, ornaments, plants and flowers. Besides highlighting these objects, you can create wonder by simply placing a table lamp by the side of fire place. This feature of your home might have been neglected so far, but not now any more.

The most distinctive feature of table lamps is its shade which differ them from rest of the lightings. This is due to the reason that in bright daytime when electric light is not needed the beautiful shade of the table lamps will do the job of decorative piece. So keep collecting different designer shades and change it time to time to retain the interest of viewers.

If you search market you will find a huge collection of table lamps starting from traditional to modern, Chinese to Italian, and so on. You will get more than enough options to decorate your house with this wonderful piece of lighting.

How To Remove Covers From Ceiling Lighting Fixtures

There may be a number of reasons that you want to remove the covers from your ceiling lighting – perhaps you are remodeling, or you need to complete some maintenance, or you want to clean the cover itself. Luckily, removing the cover of ceiling mounted lighting is a fairly simple process that you can easily do yourself.

Place a ladder beneath the lighting fixture, ensuring that it will be high enough to get you up as close to the ceiling as possible. You should also ensure that you can get up high without you having to completely stretch your arms above your head, as this is a safety hazard.

Take the cover of your ceiling lighting in one hand and use the other to loosen all of the screws that are holding it in place. Fortunately, most covers will have only a single metal fastener holding it in place, and this can easily be removed with your fingers (negating the need for a screwdriver). If you are one of the unfortunate homeowners with a more solidly secured lighting cover, you will need a Phillips-head or flat-head screwdriver to remove it.

Slowly remove the cover from over the ceiling fixture, bringing it down to be level with your torso. Be wary of moving too fast, as this may cause you to slip or to knock the globe (which could break it).

Finally, you can climb back down the ladder, ensuring that you are holding onto the cover tightly. If you can, pass the ceiling lighting cover off to a second person before you begin your descent, as this will lessen the chance of any accidents

How To Clean Exterior Lighting

Unfortunately, our exterior lighting doesn’t get the tender loving care as frequently (if ever) as it would like. Being exposed to the elements often ends up with the lighting being coated with dirt and dust. Cleaning up your exterior fixtures, however, can make your entire outdoor area look much nicer (even newer), and can increase the brightness of your lights at night by up to 20% - why wouldn’t you want to achieve this?

Begin by turning off all exterior lighting in your yard and allowing the globes to cool down completely. Often, it is best to begin cleaning in the morning or early afternoon, when your globes have had a number of hours to cool down.

Next, you can dampen an old rag with some clean water. Remove each globe from its socket and wipe them down with the rag; this will remove all of the dust that has gathered over time. Once you’re finished, replace the globe back into the exterior lighting fixture. Spray some glass cleaner (such as Windex) onto the same rag, and use it to wipe down any glass that you happen to notice in your fixtures, such as the panels in a lantern, for example.

Take a new cloth and dampen it with water. Use it to wipe away all of the dirt and dust that has gathered on the metal parts of your exterior lighting. If you find that the metal has grown dull, you can apply a teaspoon of metal polish to each fixture and polish it gently with the cloth.

Whilst cleaning your exterior lighting is not a chore that you can complete every day or even every weekend, it is something that should be done around twice to year to ensure that they look much nicer and illuminate your yard as best as they can. It doesn’t take long – an hour or two, at the most, is all you need.

How Outdoor Lights Can Enhance Beauty of Your House

So far you have known lights as means of brightening home interior or exterior of your house, but now time has changed. Today lighting has evolved also as a means of decorating home exterior. With lights you can draw the attention of viewer to any particular place. This is what can be utilized to beautify your home exterior.

For instance, you have placed a beautiful clay pot just outside your house that catches the attention of guests or passers by in the day, but what about night? Should this expensive art piece be lost in the dark? Of course not, simply install a downlight or pendent light over it hanging with the ceiling. Also, you can highlight that special plant you bought from exclusive plant exhibition in the same way or different.

Pillars just outside your door are common places to hang wall light, but you can do it in different way from the usual one by opting for some more fashionable exterior lights. You can also highlight some of your garden areas with outdoor lights. Take your fountain for example. Apart from fitting light inside the fountain, place light around it or on the ground surrounding in such a way that it draw attention all as a whole not just the water part. Your bonfire area in the lawn can be another perfect place of being experimental with lights. By lighting your bonfire area you will be having a perfect place to enjoy chat and a fabulous moment even when you are not using it for fire.

Similarly, you can install outdoor lights in your patio or pergola and make your garden the most sought after corner of your house to spend time or through a party. So, with exterior lights you can decorate your house in as many ways as you can, it’s just how far your imagination works.

How To Space External Wall Lights

These days, wall lights are not only a popular addition for the interiors of our homes – they can be used to make a statement or illuminate a safe walkway on the exterior of our homes, too. As these lights tend to be focused in a downward direction, however, how should they be spaced on the wall to ensure that they provide adequate illumination?

First, you will need to determine where you intend to install wall fixtures around the outside of your home – do you want to illuminate a driveway or pathway; do you want to showcase a feature of your yard; or do you want to create a soft ambience to relax outdoors to?

Safety

If you are hanging wall lights outside in order to provide safety (such as illuminating a pathway), they should be mounted very close to the roof, as this will allow them to light up a much larger area. In these scenarios, you should also use floodlight globes over the softer ones that wall fixtures are normally fitted with.

Decorative

If you are hanging wall fixtures outside to showcase a feature of your yard (such as a swimming pool or sculpture) or to create a peaceful outdoor ambience, they should be mounted much lower to the ground. The general rule of thumb is that the fixtures should be hung at about one-third of the height of the nearest door.

As you can see, wall lights no longer just have a place inside our homes – they can be used outside, too, if you want to create a safe or ambient atmosphere for your family and visitors to your home. By hanging the lights at appropriate spacing’s, you can ensure the best effect possible.

How to Make Your House Aesthetically Beautiful with Modern Pendent Lights

If you check out market of light fixtures you will be surprise to see the range of modern lights offered on your way. These days, modern pendent lights are ruling houses decorated by professional interior decorators. Reasons, they add a level of sophistication to a house in an aesthetic way. They beautify a home interior in a different way, not just when they are lightened, but also when they are not lighted and are just hanging from the ceiling in day time. 

Varieties of pendent lights are available in the market; some are made of steel, aluminium, plastic, cloth and even paper and thermocol. Each of them exhibits a perfect balance between chic and affordability. While choosing them, it is important to know that which one will go better with your home, because they are designed with extreme artistic thought, so it is not necessary that the one that catch your eyes will suit your home interior too. Basically, modern pendent lights are designed keeping modern houses in mind, so they might not go well with traditional interior, or even if you are choosing do it carefully. Of course, you will not like to ruin your home interior with your wrong selection of light. 

 

After design part, color of the light is another part which plays a significant part in enhancing the beauty of your home décor. For a suggestion, if a room has a minimalist feel with a fewer pieces of furniture having neutral colors, choosing drop lights with a full-size splash of color can be a fantastic idea. Modern pendent lights not only illuminate your home, but also provide an artistic piece that you will be proud to display.

How Far Down Should Your Modern Chandelier Hang?

These days, in the realm of the modern chandelier, it is no longer a lighting fixture that is suspended directly from the ceiling. The chandelier is more commonly hung at an attractive height for the room, throwing its illumination wherever needed. But how far down should your fixture hang? How low is too low?

Dining Room

• The bottom of a modern chandelier should sit at about 30 to 34 inches from the top of the dining table in a room that has a ceiling of 8 feet high. If your dining room is taller, hang the chandelier 3 inches higher than this for every extra foot of ceiling height (so it doesn’t look too low).

Foyers

• The bottom of a modern chandelier should sit at least 7 feet from the floor in foyers, and even rooms, where people will need to walk underneath them. If you have a two-storey foyer, hang the chandelier about one-third of the way between ceiling and floor.

Kitchens, Bedrooms and Living Rooms

• The bottom of a modern chandelier should sit no less than 30 inches above a table or other surface, as this leaves you ample room to place items on the surface. Hang chandeliers higher in rooms with overly high ceilings.

At the end of the day, you should use your own discretion when it comes to hanging a modern chandelier in your home – if you feel it is hanging too high or too low and then adjust it until you are happy. The rule of thumb, however, is that chandeliers should sit no lower than 30 inches above a table and no lowers than 7 feet when people need to walk underneath it.

Where to Use Modern Pendant Lights

Modern pendant lights are just an amazing way to illuminate any space of your house. These lights are basically fixtures that hang from the ceiling and are suspended by a chain, cord or metal rod. The most attractive feature of these lights is that they focus beam on particular area, emphasizing on a specific zone to highlight its beauty. 

If you start looking for modern pendent lights, you will find plethora of choices and all one better than another. Each of them is designed keeping modern house interior in mind. Now, the choice depends on where you want them to place, their function and design. 

You can hang it in straight line over kitchen countertops or at the center counter in kitchen. Placing the light in this location will allow you to work with this light alone, eliminating the need to light-up other lights and will of course lift up the beauty. Another location where you can effectively place them is your bathroom. Yes, it can be a wonderful idea if employed in a proper way. Hang one of them over wash basin or over bathtub, light up while using them and enjoy the beauty.

Another fantastic way to enhance the beauty of your house is using modern pendant lights over your dining table. Just install a single large downlights pendent over your dining table and see how it changes look of your house. In a similar fashion you can also improve the look of your living area by focusing on a specific corner. Pick any corner of your living room, place an attractive show piece over a wooden carve stool and accompany it with a hanging light, you will be praised for your creative idea.

Tips For Choosing The Most Appropriate Ceiling Lighting For Your Home

When it comes to ceiling lighting, it is safe to say that these are the most important fixtures in our home – after all, they’re used the most and tend to be the main light source of any room. But, with all the variety in styles for our ceiling fixtures, it can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to choosing the most appropriate type for your home.

These 4 tips are designed to help you make the best decision when it comes to choosing the ceiling fixtures for your home:

1. Decide on how much light you want a particular room to receive, and ensure that the fixture you have chosen is able to provide that much output.
2. Take into consideration that every room in your home is going to require to require a different amount of illumination, as required by different tasks – ensure that you pick each ceiling lighting fixture according to the room.
3. Being the most accident-prone room of the house, the kitchen generally requires the most amount of light, but many homeowners like to opt for ceiling lighting that has dimming capability.
4. As a range of different tasks are completed in the bedroom, it is important to ensure that your ceiling lighting is able to cater for each of these – bright light for reading and dim light for winding down.

Choosing the most appropriate ceiling lighting for your home does not have to be a drawn-out or even a difficult task – simply by taking into account the sort of lighting that each room in your home requires, you will make the right decision. You should also consider the use of energy efficient globes if you want to increase the benefits of your ceiling fixtures.

Choosing A Modern Chandelier For A Bedroom

Many people would love to hang a modern chandelier in their bedroom to create a sophisticated and elegant feel in the room, but aren’t sure whether this type of fixture is the best option for task lighting. Chandeliers actually work great as tasking lighting, especially if they are hung beside a bed (as a bedside lamp) or over the dressing area. But how do you choose one for your particular bedroom?

Look at your bedroom and try to determine what the style or the theme of the space is. There is generally a modern chandelier to suit every décor, but you wouldn’t use a streamlined metallic one if your room had beach or Parisian influences, would you? It is all about choosing a chandelier to match the modern décor used in the rest of your bedroom.

You should also look at the various materials used in your bedroom and try to choose a chandelier that uses similar elements. Do you have brushed nickel pieces in your room, or is wrought iron more the style you have gone for? If you have a lot of decorative elements (such as a beaded doorway) you could even choose a modern chandelier that is hung with similar beads.

Next, you will need to determine how much lighting your bedroom actually needs. If you plan to use your chandelier as the main source of light, it will need to be of a larger size with open bulbs. If you plan to use your modern chandelier for ambience or to highlight a feature of the room, a shaded fixture will be suitable.

Finally, when it comes to hanging your modern chandelier, you will need to ensure that there is plenty of space to walk underneath it and that it effectively lights up the space that you need it to. Often, the lighting company that you’re buying from can help you determine chandelier height on a case-by-case basis.