How to Light Your Home So Even the Overhead Haters Are Happy

You’ve furnished, decorated, and designed your space for months (or even years) but it still feels like something is missing. And try as you might, you can’t put your finger on exactly what it is. That giant gap you’re noticing, is likely lighting—the secret ingredient that makes TV apartments, home makeover shows, and celebrity homes look so damn good.

"Lighting is the most crucial part of a room. It's also the most cost-effective way to completely transform a room and do it really quickly and easily," says Emmy-award-winning interior designer and television art director Tyka Pryde Edwards, who has worked in home rental television for almost ten years on shows like Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Queer Eye, and more.

Lighting is an art, so much so that there are experts who have built entire careers around studying and perfecting it, like lighting designer Seth Bernstein, who has worked on lighting designs for Saturday Night Live, Louis Vuitton, Nike, and The Color Factory. "It’s more important than ever to have a home that’s lit for you," Bernstein says, especially when you think of all of the things you do in your home, from relaxing, calling into Zoom meetings, sharing intimate moments, and even being trapped for a year due to an unforeseen pandemic.

Turning on a floor lamp in the living room isn’t enough. If you want your home to truly shine, you’re going to have to add a touch of lighting magic. Buckle up: Lighting 101 is now in session.

Lighting is a personal journey

Before heading out to your nearest furniture store, pause and ask yourself some hard questions: How are you using your space? What activities will you be doing? And, most importantly, what’s the vibe? Your questions will also depend heavily on the size of your home.

For example, if you live in a cramped studio apartment, your lighting set-up is your lifeline. Without it you can kiss using your space to work, sleep, lounge, and even cook goodbye. If you’re working with a large space, skimping on lighting can make it feel like an empty warehouse: cold, sterile, and not cozy at all. And lastly, if you love to throw dinner parties, you’re going to want to use as much ambient, moody lighting as possible, especially as guests are arriving and enjoying their meals. Whether you’re relaxing, doing focused work, or cleaning, you’ll want your lighting to support these tasks instead of distracting from them. Once you’re clear on how you’d like your lighting to function, you’re ready to start planning and shopping.

Three is the magic number

While your exact lighting setup may vary depending on the specific ins and outs of your space, there are some general ground rules to follow. Pryde Edwards recommends going for a minimum of three different layers of lighting to effectively brighten things up. Each of your rooms will likely have an overhead light in the center. This is the first layer and should be used sparingly (more on that later). The second layer should be picture lights, wall sconces, or other smaller lights that focus on specific architectural elements of the room. And finally, layer three, task lighting. Think of this as the vehicle that supports all of your most important functions, like reading, writing, and working from home.

Broken down into simpler terms, each room should, at minimum, have an overhead light, a floor lamp, and a table lamp. While most of us aren’t able to move our overhead lighting, lamps offer flexibility, which is important when you’re just getting started. You can also use floor lighting to highlight specific pieces of furniture, like that expensive couch that you want everyone to see. Pryde Edwards sometimes places floor lighting behind couches, chairs, and other pieces of furniture to highlight them. You don’t have to stop at just three layers, but that is the mandatory foundation. You can also add additional lighting based on your preference; think plug-in nightlights in the kitchen, a lamp on a plinth in the corner of a room, or a wall sconce or picture light on the wall in your living room.

Finding the right temp

In a desperate bid to give our space the perfect shine, many of us opt for cool-toned bulbs, which have the opposite lighting effect that we’re looking for. Most importantly, your lighting temperature will depend on the room you’re looking to light. In a kitchen, bathroom, home office, or any place where you’ll do focused work in, you may opt for brighter, cooler lighting. "Anywhere you're going to want to focus and really see what you're doing and feel awake, and alive, and alert, I would recommend going brighter with your lighting," said Pryde Edwards. In bedrooms, dining rooms, and living rooms, you’ll want to stick to warmer, and cozier feeling lighting to make the space feel more inviting and comfortable.

As a general rule, Bernstein recommends sticking with 2700 Kelvin for lounging (around the brightness of candlelight), and 4000 Kelvin when doing focused tasks (which falls in between candlelight and daylight). Depending on what your days look like, you can start your mornings with brighter lighting and then switch over to candlelight-level brightness once you’re ready to relax.

For the most flexibility, color temperature adjustable bulbs are a great option as they can be shifted from cool and bright daylight to warm and cozy candlelight. Connecting your overhead lighting to a dimmer will also allow you to play around with different levels of brightness and, combined with adjustable bulbs, will give you full customization. This can be especially helpful in rooms where you may need to use multiple lighting temperatures.

Overhead lighting: Friend or foe?

Let this viral TikTok sound guide you: "We never, ever, ever, use the big light." Or, as Bernstein puts it, overhead lighting can kind of feel similar to the lights coming on at the club at 5 am: A little disorienting, and very disruptive. Most overhead lighting is stark, and simply unflattering, making it an option you only want to lean on when absolutely necessary. This includes cleaning, working, cooking, or any other activity that requires close focus.

However, with the right lightbulb/light switch combination you can make your overhead lights as cozy as possible. In spaces like living rooms and dining rooms, Pryde Edwards recommends going for an "ambient [or warm] color ceiling light so even if the big light is on, it still feels cozy and warm."

Consider your space

While three is the magic lighting layer number, your exact equation will also depend on your home’s size. "You still want the three tiers of lighting no matter how big or small your space is," Pryde Edwards explains.

When looking for lighting options for a smaller place, you’ll also want to consider scale, and purchase products that fit perfectly in smaller and tighter corners. (Yes, this means you’ll need to measure and re-measure everything before making any purchases.) After throwing lights in any and every corner of your home, Pryde Edwards shared a secret tip that she uses to make spaces seem bigger: Place a mirror directly across from any window so that light can be reflected throughout the entire room.

If you’re lucky enough to be working with a larger area, you’ll need to add as many varieties of lighting to make it feel like a home. This includes wall sconces, and multiple floor and table lamps. Bernstein also recommends going bigger with product scale, which will help add more light.

Now, if your apartment is dark no matter what time of day it is, you don’t have to live like a vampire for the rest of your days. Sunlight typically comes into a room in a direct stream and then is indirectly reflected to fill up a space with light, and luckily this is replicable using artificial lighting. You can create a sort of "faux sunshine" by lining track or rope lights around your ceiling. Bernstein also loves using ’90s style torchiere lamps, which direct light straight up to the ceiling, similar to the way the sun would light up a room.

When you think about it, an empty apartment is like a blank canvas, leaving renters with a lot of freedom to expand on the hideous boob light that accompanies most apartments. Bernstein has three words for renters: lamps, lamps, and more lamps. He favors lamps over built-ins as you can always move or place them exactly in an area you’re looking to illuminate and you can easily pack them up into a moving truck when it’s time to move on to your next place. Before paying the big bucks or putting forth the big effort to swap out your overhead lighting, consider other options, such as plug-in wall sconces, which are a great way to elevate your space without having to install or hardwire a thing.

Don’t be afraid to start small

Most people don’t have thousands of dollars to burn on lighting their homes. That’s why it’s important to make every dollar count when shopping and settling on your final design. To start, Bernstein recommends leaving the eyeballing to the lighting experts and going into your nearest showroom to see how lighting options look IRL. This will help you save yourself from making expensive mistakes that may not be reversible or returnable.

"Get one lamp off Amazon that does color temperature adjustments, put it on your desk, and just see how you feel about it," Bernstein says, before investing majorly in any products. Another pro tip is to purchase a cheaper lamp base and pair it with a more premium shade and lightbulb to make it look more expensive and elevated.

You’re likely not going to get everything perfect on your first…or even second try while setting everything up, and that’s okay. One of the main rules of lighting is to be flexible and make adjustments as needed. That table tamp may actually work better on your desk instead of on your coffee table, but you’ll never know unless you try different combinations.

Whatever you do, don’t do this

While mistakes are a part of the home design learning curve, our experts have some tips for avoiding making major missteps. First, avoid buying daylight bulbs for every room in your home. In many design projects, Pryde Edwards sees "A lot of people buying daylight light bulbs. And that gives a cool tone and a bright white, and you see a lot of those color lights in hospitals, the dentist office, things like that." This kind of lighting can give your space a clinical feel, and we’re sure you want to avoid that at all costs. And while bold color-changing light bulbs are very popular right now, both of our experts suggest leaving those for college dorm rooms or Christmas trees.

There’s also no such thing as having too much lighting, because you can always turn them off, so don’t underdo it trying not to overdo it. Lastly, while trends are great, they typically tend to die out after a few months or years. Instead of trying to keep up with them, stick with designs that you truly like and that will stand the test of time.

But! All rules are meant to be broken. Bernstein emphasizes that when it comes to lighting, "you are always right," so trust your gut feeling. If you want to light your home in a way that goes against common rules, go for it. You know your space and its needs best. 

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