How to Choose and Place Light Fixtures for Cozy Dining Room Lighting
Choosing the right light fixtures and placing them well is essential for a dining room. Not only does it make all the difference in terms of decor, correct luminosity is essential at the dining table.
This usually isn’t the case when we move into a new house or apartment, though. Most of the time, the position of the light sources doesn’t match the layout we want.
Therefore, it is important to rethink ambient lamps and especially the fixture over the dining table.
Creating a good lighting layout seems complicated, but you’ll see that you can get a great result by following a few simple steps.
In this article, you’ll learn different strategies for different budgets.
Some of them need a slightly larger investment (and a little more mess and time on a renovation too). Some are just ideas for making simple and effective changes, if you don’t want to renovate or spend a lot.
As you read, leave this article on types of light fixtures open. Refer to it whenever you are not familiar with a fixture name.
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Types of lighting
Before we talk about the ideal lighting for a dining room, let’s understand the difference between task, accent and ambient lighting.
Task and accent lights usually come from a visible light source facing an object that needs to be directly illuminated. That is, fixtures used for these types of lighting usually provide direct light.
In case of task lighting, the focus is the space used for any kind of activity, such as reading, cooking or working on a desk.
Accent lighting focuses in decorative items, such as objects, paintings, plants or wall coverings.
Ambient lighting doesn’t focus on any specific point. Its role is to illuminate the room in its entirety, with an uniform level of intensity.
Fixtures that provide direct light can also be used for ambient lighting, but indirect and diffuse lights may be more interesting.
Diffused light uses a an element spreading the light, such as a dome, between the light source and the lit point.
Indirect light is a light source aimed at another surface instead of the object to be illuminated. For example, a lamp facing the ceiling. The light reflects on the ceiling and indirectly illuminates the entire room.
Choosing the light fixture for the dining table
Designing dining room lighting begins by choosing a light source focused on the table.
The dining table is a spot that requires task lighting. That can be done using direct or diffused light.
The most used type of fixture is the chandelier (pendant light). It places the light bulb away from the ceiling and closer to the table surface.
The advantage of using a chandelier is that the table can receive a bright light, while the bulb isn’t visible for people sitting or standing.
So you have a cozy atmosphere and the necessary luminosity at the same time.
If you don’t like chandeliers, there are other types of fixtures. You can have any fixture that provides direct light onto the table, such as a recessed, ceiling or track light.
You may want a lamp closer to the table, but it’s hard to install a chandelier on your room’s ceiling, because there is no electric point close to the table position, or any other reason.
In this case, you can get a large fixture with long stem, like a floor light or a sconce, and plug it to an outlet as seen below.
Is the light fixture over the dining table enough to brighten up the entire room?
This will depend on the size of your dining room, its layout and the light fixture you choose.
If you chose a chandelier or floor light, you probably need complementary lights to illuminate the rest of the room.
If you prefer to place ceiling lights over the dining table, they should be enough to provide ambient lighting unless your dining room is large.
Determine whether you want to directly illuminate other points around the dining table, such as shelves, sideboards, paintings.
If you decide you need more than the dining table fixture, take a look at this article on living room lighting. There you’ll see a number of strategies for combining different types of fixtures, creating points of direct light and ambient lighting.
To complete your lighting project, learn how to choose light bulbs and read about lighting for the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and laundry room.