Section
Lighting
Lighting is the cheapest upgrade in interior design and the most commonly botched. Rooms end up with one ceiling fixture doing all the work, bulbs that fight each other in color, and pendants hung at forehead height.
Each guide here answers one question with numbers you can act on: how high, how far apart, how bright, and what color of light.
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Bathroom Vanity Lighting: Placement That Flatters Faces
Why side lights beat overhead, sconce heights and spacing at the mirror, bar light placement, lumen targets, and wet-location ratings.
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Bedside Lighting: Lamp Heights and Sconce Placement
Table lamp heights relative to the mattress, sconce mounting numbers, reading light angles, and lumen targets for reading in bed.
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Dining Room Chandelier Size: A Simple Formula That Works
Two sizing formulas, hanging height above the table, ceiling height adjustments, and the oversize and undersize mistakes to avoid.
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How Many Lumens per Room: A Lighting Level Cheat Sheet
Lumen targets for every room, the square-footage math, watt-to-lumen conversions, and adjustments for dark walls and tall ceilings.
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Layered Lighting: Ambient, Task, and Accent, Explained
What the three lighting layers do, room-by-room examples, why a single ceiling fixture fails, and how to plan switches and dimmers.
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Light Bulb Color Temperature: 2700K vs. 3000K vs. 4000K
What Kelvin ratings mean, which temperature fits each room, rules for mixing them, CRI basics, and how to match bulbs across fixtures.
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Pendant Lights Over an Island: Height, Size, and Spacing
Height above the counter, spacing between pendants, how many pendants fit each island length, and diameter rules, with a sizing chart.
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Recessed Lighting Spacing: How Many Cans, How Far Apart
The ceiling-height spacing rule, distances from walls, can counts from square footage, and how to avoid the grid-of-holes ceiling.