Be Inspired with our Top Summer Lighting Tips for your Home

As we embrace summer, we open our homes to that breath of warm air, and enjoy spending more time outdoors.  With that in mind, let’s look at some of the summer lighting tips, styles and options for your home.

Along with the warm air and longer days, lighting can play an integral role in how we “feel”.  It can brighten a dark space, it can set a mood, and it can help integrate indoor and outdoor spaces. 

At the top of our summer lighting tips is creating a layered lighting scheme. Important during the darker months of the year, it is no less important when lighting your home during the summer months.  In fact, a good layered lighting scheme can allow you to add a little light where necessary without the need to flood a room with light, perfect for the longer days of the summer months.

So, what is layered lighting?

Layering your lighting creating layers of the basic lighting types – ambient lighting, task lighting, accent lighting, and decorative lighting, within a space.

Ambient lighting is generally lighting that lights the overall space.

Task lighting is, as it’s name suggests, lighting designed specifically to help you perform a task. Think cooking in the kitchen or on your outdoor BBQ.

Accent lighting is used to highlight features of your home, such as beautiful architectural detailing or artwork, or particular foliage or gardens in your backyard.

Decorative lighting, well it is pretty self explanatory, and with innovations in technology and design, it is usually a component of all three of the above lighting types.

By creating a layered lighting scheme, you can better utilise light when and where it is needed, both indoors and outdoors.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at our top summer lighting tips that will help you enjoy summer in your home that little more.

Summer Lighting Tips for your Indoor Spaces

Create a seamless transition between the inside and the outside

We’ve all heard that saying “bring the outdoors in”?  Lighting can help you achieve this.  By melding your lighting scheme across your indoor and outdoor spaces, you can create flow.

Our summer lighting tips for doing this include:

• Using lighting that has natural textures, tones and materials to bring nature indoors
  
• Create a theme across spaces.  A popular theme, for instance, that easily transcends into lighting is Hamptons.  Inspired by the seaside holiday home of the Hamptons, the style is all about relaxed coastal living, with a bright, light and beachy feel.
  
• Incorporate glass light fittings into your scheme.  Glass is perfect for allowing spaces to blend by not blocking or intruding upon views to your outdoor spaces, or even views between spaces within the interior of your home.
  
• Choose multi-use lighting options.  A great example of this is selecting outdoor lighting fixtures that can also be utilised indoors to create continuity.
  
• Blend lighting styles.  If you have a more traditional interior that flows onto your outdoor space for instance, a great way to meld these spaces is to blend lighting styles.  Think timeless, classic fixtures that have been given a modern twist.

Use linear lighting

The clean lines that are a trademark of linear lighting exude simplicity, much like our summer lifestyle!

Use subtle lighting options

Subtle lighting that melts into spaces, can help to create a light, open and airy feel of your indoor spaces.  LED strip lighting, for instance, is a great example of unobtrusive lighting.

Summer Lighting Tips for your Outdoor Spaces

As summer looms, we are looking for almost any excuse to get outdoors!  Balmy nights with dinner parties and BBQs, or quiet drinks in the cool of a hot summer’s day.  If, like us, you are planning on making the most of your outdoor spaces this summer, we have a few ideas to help you make the most of it!

Use subtle lighting options to create a lighting backdrop to your outdoor space, that is also perfect for creating a relaxed mood.  Our top picks for subtle outdoor lighting options include:

• Festoon Lighting.  Festoon or string lights are perfect if you are host to many a backyard BBQ during summer!  They are versatile, weather resistant, and the ultimate in cost saving DIY lighting.  Hang over your outdoor dining area, or string from a tree, or a fence.
  
• In-Ground Uplights.  Uplights fall into the accent lighting category, and are perfect for highlighting areas of your garden that you would like to showcase.  Aside from that though, uplighting is perfect for providing a subtle backdrop to enjoy those summer nights outdoors.
  
• Pendant Lights. Yes, there are plenty of pendant light options for your outdoor spaces too.  Choose options with a soft glow to hang above your dining space to create mood, and then options with a more directed light above outdoor work spaces, such as the BBQ. 
  
• Lanterns.  Always an easy, inexpensive and popular choice, lanterns placed, or even hung, throughout your outdoor space can create a lighting wonderland.

For more tips on outdoor lighting options see our blog post Outdoor Lighting Ideas to Enhance your Entertainment Space.

As we dive into summer, take a little time to see what summer lighting styles you can incorporate into your home, or contact the lighting experts at Rovert Lighting & Electrical, and let us work with you to create a summer lighting scheme that reflects your home and personality.