There is no easy way to physically expand a room’s size, besides perhaps knocking down the walls. Not many people want to invest time, money and work into this.
Fortunately, there are plenty of lighting strategies that can open space within your room. Take a look at these easy tips and tricks to make your space feel bigger!
PLAY WITH COLOR
Since some rooms are built without windows, it may feel like you are trapped inside a box. With the lack of sunlight, your inner-vampire may start to come out. However, installing light fixtures with a high CRI, or color rendering index, can brighten your space.
What is CRI? Color Rendering Index is the measurement of light in relation to how it affects the appearance of color.
High CRIs can open up a space and increase vibrancy. With sunlight having a CRI of 100, it reaches the highest rating there is. LEDs can reach CRI’s of 95+, which results in a more natural, accurate appearance of colors as if you were outside. Use this lighting strategy to open up any room.
BEAM TO A FOCAL POINT
Highlighting a certain point in your room can be an excellent way to fool the eye into mimicking space. To do this, point a lighting fixture’s beam towards the object. Let’s say you want to point to a picture frame: the focus will be on the picture, not the size of the room. All is forgotten on how tiny your room may be.
A fixture can have accessories such as special optics, snoots, and rings added to narrow the beam of light onto a focal point. This creates a “spotlight.” Lumenture’s snoots are easily replaceable and have different shapes, sizes, and aesthetics such as the standard snoot, cylinder snoot, and VNSP snoot. There are also a variety of optics to choose from to create the perfect beam spread.
THE BRIGHTER, THE BETTER
Have you heard of the term “lumens”? In the lighting world, lumens means the measurement of total light output. This translates to the brightness of the light. More lumens equals brighter lighting, while fewer lumens means dimmer lighting.
Despite brightness having a large impact on how we perceive space, it also opens up a room. Have you ever been in a room where the light can dim and brighten? Notice how the room suddenly expands as the brightness goes up.
WHAT ABOUT WALL WASHING?
Now, don’t start scrubbing your walls with soap. Wall washing is a lighting technique used to expand the boundaries of your room by pushing the walls away from each other. The light is spread across the surface of the wall, and “washes” the area with light.
With wall washing, you are able to minimize shadows and elongate the walls. This will make your room feel larger and taller. Ironically, wall washing is not so much about the lighting itself, but the impact of the vertical lighting on the architecture of the room.
CONSIDER MINIAMILISM: USED RECESSED LIGHTING
A “quieter” ceiling can result in a minimalistic and spacious room. Recessed lighting can be key to keeping a ceiling looking simple, especially if the aperture of each recessed light is small.
What is aperture? It is an opening referring to the cutout on a recessed lighting trim where light comes from.
Because these fixtures disappear into the ceiling, they are functional and yet, don’t take up space. Replace any lights that hang from the ceiling with recessed lighting to keep the room tidy, clean, and spacious. Even better, arrange the recessed lights far away from each other to create more space in the ceiling.
LED LIGHTING STRATEGIES: THE TAKEAWAY
As you’ve learned from these lighting strategies, there is a science behind lighting a room. By following the tips in this article, your room will certainly look bigger. When in doubt, get your favorite lighting pro involved or give Lumenture a call!
