Living Rooms & Great Rooms Archives

1THING: New Build Living Rooms

An illustrated diagram depicting a living room with two easy chairs facing each other, each underneath a window to the outdoors. A mantle is on the far wall between the chairs. Two dotted red lines block off a horizontal section in the middle of the room, labeled in red text as "the feel good zone."

This post is the third in my 1THING: New Builds series designed to boil better lighting down to the bare essentials. And I promise I’ll get to the subject – living rooms – in just a moment. But first, I owe you an apology. One of the benefits of blogging – at least the way I blog […]

1THING: Plug In Living Rooms

An illustration of a standard lamp with a thin stem and a lampshade. Text underneath reads "the amazing lamp"

If the idea of ripping into a finished ceiling, pulling new wires, installing fixtures, repairing drywall, and repainting is discouraging you from improving lighting in your home, I sympathize. When I was a tad younger (okay, twenty years younger), I thought nothing of crawling through my attic, hacking away at decades old plaster, and pulling […]

Living with Light

An illustrated diagram of a living room featuring a fireplace and mangle, two windows, and two easy chairs facing each other. "Light for knowing" labels a light fixture against the wall. "Light for story" labels the light pointed at a picture. "Light for changing" labels a light switch. "Light for doing" labels a lamp by a chair. "Light for feeling" labels the fire in the fireplace and a lamp on the mantle.

If you’re looking to review the layers of light and apply them to your living room, my article on Houzz.com (link below) would be a good place to start. In addition to my oh-so-nifty sketch, you’ll find photographic examples of each layer from multiple projects in multiple styles. Enjoy! How to Light Your Living Room […]

Light for Knowing: A Great Room

A photograph of an intricate, metal filligree hanging on the wall of a great room.

The Gift’s second promise is that light can help us know where we are, where we are going, and who we are with. Light for knowing may take the form of “ambient” light, which is soft, diffuse, general light that dimly fills a space. But it may also be much more focused light that gives […]

Practical Advice: Choosing Lamps

An illustrated diagram of a figure on an armchair next to a lamp with the perfect amount of light

Choosing a lamp can be just as much fun as choosing a chair…until you get the chair home and realize it doesn’t fit/doesn’t coordinate with the room/or isn’t comfortable after an hour of reading. Guess what? A lamp can also be uncomfortable or not fit with the room and leave you wanting more. As […]

Light for Doing: A Living Room

A living room packed with seating and tables with a ceiling fan light on

CFLS: Ceiling Fan Light Syndrome. Great for vacuuming the carpet, awful for everything else. Everyone uses their living rooms differently, which means everyone’s idea of great lighting will be different. In your living or family room you might watch television, read books, play games, relax on the couch, surf the internet on your iPad, knit, snack, […]

Light for Knowing

A very pitch black image with the outline of a person shining a weak light towards the camera

Light isn’t just for doing- it is also for knowing where we are, where we are going, and who we are with. Imagine yourself in a large room that is completely dark- you cannot see anything. Now add the most basic light for reading- a clip-on book light. You can see the pages now, yes? […]

Category: Living Rooms & Great Rooms