Living Room Lighting: Three Sources Beat One
The living room is where lighting shows the most, and where a single ceiling fixture runs out of road fastest. Living room lighting has to cover uses that have nothing in common: entertaining, reading, watching a film, doing nothing at all. One overhead source cannot carry all four.
The arrangement that works rests on three points. A high source — a pendant or a ceiling light — for general level. A reading source beside the sofa or armchair, at seated shoulder height. A low, decorative source, a lamp on a console or a sconce, that takes over late in the evening once everything else is off. If you hang a fixture over a coffee table, keep at least six feet of clear space around it.
Stay at 2700K throughout the room: mixing warm and cool whites in one living room is noticed immediately, even by people who could not name the problem. Build from our pendant lights and our table lamps.