What is ambient light?

Consider the feeling of returning home to a warmly lit room, candles glowing and the crackle of a fireplace or the soft, diffused glow of a floor lamp in a dark corner. Your home should be a reliable place to relax at the end of the day, and you can create this cozy feeling with different sources of ambient light. A thoughtful lighting scheme elicits a sense of instant joy and comfort while enjoying quality time with family, hosting friends, or curling up with a good book.

Your living room needs layered light to enhance versatility and aesthetic appeal. Meanwhile, your kitchen should provide adequate overhead light for preparing food, while dimming to an intimate setting for sharing a meal. Your house must be able to transform for every scenario, and here's a guide to help show you how.

What is ambient light? Before you can create ambient lighting for your home, you'll need to understand how ambient illumination forms the foundational layer of light in a room. Ambient light refers to any light that indirectly brightens a room, including natural light during the day.

Using thoughtful lighting sources, you can create a well-lit atmosphere that gives off a functional and calming glow. While your decor plays an important role in the atmosphere, choosing the ideal ambient lighting is paramount.

Your goal should be to avoid harsh lights and shadows that are typically created with one imbalanced bright light, instead combining soft lights placed throughout the room. Combining pendant, floor, wall, and table lights gives the room depth and versatility.

Many people equate ambient lighting with mood lighting. While mood lighting can be any color, ambient light is a subset that uses natural tones. Warm tones are typically preferred, but ambient lighting sometimes utilizes cool tones as well. The type of light you choose will depend on the atmosphere you're striving to achieve. Your rooms can even change from cool natural light during the day to warm lamplight at night.

The way you incorporate ambient lighting into your home will depend on the room you're designing, as each room serves a different function. To create ambient light, start by going through the house and turning off as many lights as possible. Make sure there is still a bit of light in each space to guide your way (for safety) and make it easy to assess which areas can benefit from accent lighting.

The accents may be functional or artistic and vary among rooms. After noting each area, consider how you'll use each room when choosing lights to add. As you select locations, make sure the light will uniformly bathe the room. Too much light in one area or not enough in another will leave the space feeling imbalanced.

Your kitchen and dining area serve core functions: preparing meals and eating together, respectively. Those distinctly different lighting scenarios mean versatility is crucial.

In your kitchen, slicing vegetables requires good visibility. Layer ambient lights with additional task lighting, if needed, to achieve a bright space that is ideal for cooking. You'll want overhead lighting as a base glow, while you can place additional lights underneath cabinets.

When choosing where to add task lights, pay careful attention to any shadows that appear throughout the kitchen and place lights in spaces to balance them out. If you have an island, a pendant lamp is ideal for lighting the workspace.

Your dining area should seamlessly transition from a warm family space to a lively or intimate setting when hosting dinner parties. Choosing the right chandelier or pendant creates a base glow above your table, and adding a dimmer switch will let you decide how bright to make the space, depending on your needs from moment to moment. Consider your table's shape while deciding which fixture to place above it. A round table looks best with a chandelier, while a linear pendant fixture befits a rectangular table.

How you start and end your day has the most significant impact on your mood2, so the lighting in your bedroom is the most important to get right. You'll want a calm space to fall asleep at night easily, so you wake up feeling refreshed in the morning.

Ceiling or recessed lighting can provide a relaxing warmth throughout the room. If you have a large bedroom with high ceilings, consider pendant or chandelier lights. For a smaller bedroom, recessed lights will work better. Use decorative table lamps for reading before bed for added style.

To create a dramatic effect, consider artistic wall sconces instead of overhead lighting. By emitting a dimmer glow, you can create purposeful shadows that highlight your decor and ensure your room isn't too bright as you get ready for bed.

For bulbs, choose a warmer bulb between 2000 and 4000 lumens3. Cool bright lights promote alertness, which can adversely affect your circadian rhythm4.

As you consider how to outfit your home, you'll want fixtures that provide a sense of timeless comfort. More than functional, Louis Poulsen creates lasting works of eco-friendly modern art. With options for every part of the home, choose light sources that are relaxing and beautiful.