Home Lighting Design Ideas

Brass Fender wall light next to a gallery of prints.

Picking out new fixtures for your home, you quickly realise just how much of a difference the right lighting can make. Whether it’s a soft glow over the dining table or a warm pool of light by the sofa, the right home lighting design can make familiar rooms feel cosier and more inviting. Even the little details, like matching sockets and switches, can quietly elevate a space and make it feel more put together.

Discover how to make any room more stylish and functional with these inspiring home lighting design ideas.

Home lighting fundamentals: Layering your lighting

Before you start designing your home lighting scheme, it’s important to have a good understanding of the fundamentals. Experts recommend layering your lighting to create practical, multifunctional interiors that also feel more cosy and inviting.

“Layering your lighting is one of the simplest ways to completely transform how your home feels — from functional to atmospheric, ordinary to inviting. It’s not just about brightness, but about mood, comfort and highlighting the moments that matter. When you understand the purpose of each layer — ambient, task and accent — you start to see your space differently. It becomes more personal, more expressive. And that’s when interiors really start to sing.”

Ally Dowsing-Reynolds, Interiors Expert & Co-Founder

There are three layers of lighting that you should aim to include in every room: ambient, task, and accent.

Ambient lighting provides overall illumination in a room. It should be flexible enough to set the right atmosphere for any time of day, which is why it’s a good idea to make your ambient lights dimmable.
Task lighting is used to ensure high visibility when carrying out tasks. It should eliminate any shadows and glare to reduce eyestrain and help you stay focused.
Accent lighting highlights certain features or areas within a room to draw attention to them. Think of it as the finishing touch to your lighting scheme, adding depth and visual interest to your space.

For a more detailed insight into layered lighting, take a look at our guide on how to create a layered lighting scheme.

10 home lighting design ideas for stylish and functional spaces

If you’re not sure where to start with creating a lighting scheme that strikes the perfect balance between style and functionality, get inspired with these home lighting design ideas.

1. Create a focal point with statement fixtures

Create attractive focal points in your home by opting for statement lighting fixtures in key rooms. This is a great way to add character and visual interest, making your home feel more inviting.

Contemporary chandeliers are the perfect statement piece, drawing the eye upwards and adding style and elegance. Position one in the middle of your living room as a beautiful centrepiece to gather around, or in your entranceway to greet guests the moment they set foot in your home.

In the bedroom, designer bedside lamps are great for adding depth and interest, serving as both practical task lighting and decorative accents. Choose bold sculptural designs that reflect your personal style for a cosy, curated space.

2. Opt for semi-flush lights for low ceilings

While large, extravagant lighting fixtures are great for making a statement, they tend not to be a good choice for homes with low ceilings. These low-hanging fixtures are likely to get in the way, and can make rooms with low ceilings feel small and constricted.

If your home has low ceilings, consider opting for semi-flush lighting fixtures instead. These lights take up much less space than their low-hanging counterparts while still providing an even spread of light throughout the room. Modern semi-flush ceiling lights are available in a wide range of attractive styles, making them a beautiful addition to your home lighting scheme.

semi flush ceiling light with gold metal hardware, black fabric cables and fluted ribbed glass baubles and bulbs

3. Set the mood with dimmer switches

For full control over the mood of your spaces, putting your ambient lights on dimmer switches is a must. This is especially important in multifunctional areas of your home, like the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms, where you want to be able to easily switch between bright, practical lighting when carrying out tasks and softer, cosy lighting for relaxing and unwinding.

Choose dimmer switches that complement your existing interior design scheme – sleek black light switches blend seamlessly into contemporary homes, for example, for a cohesive, high-end look.

matt black metal plate dimmer switch 3g with triple gold knurled dimmer knobs

4. Highlight features with accent lighting

Accent lighting is one of the key types of lighting that should be included in your home lighting scheme to add depth and interest to your space. There are lots of ways to incorporate accent lighting, but one of the best is to use it to highlight key features within a room, whether decorative or architectural.

Use wall lights to illuminate your favourite pieces of artwork, or angle lighting fixtures towards key architectural details like fireplaces or exposed beams to turn them into focal points within the room.

5. Get cosy with warm bulb temperatures

For rooms designed for relaxing, like the living room and bedroom, it’s a good idea to choose light bulbs with a warm colour temperature. Look out for bulbs with a colour temperature of 2700 Kelvin (K) or less – these bulbs give off a warm, cosy glow that’s perfect for helping us unwind and feel at ease.

It’s best to avoid bulbs with a cool colour temperature (3000K or more) in rooms that you want to feel cosy and inviting, as these bulbs provide a very stark light that’s designed to keep us alert rather than relaxed – use cool bulbs in rooms like the bathroom or home office instead.

6. Suspend pendant lights over dining areas

chain bubble chandelier for hanging over a dining table to make a statement

Pendant lights are a beautiful addition to dining spaces, whether suspended above your dining table or kitchen island. These fixtures offer the ideal blend of practicality and style, providing the light you need to see what you’re eating while also serving as an attractive focal point.

“A statement chandelier like our Large Gold Chain Frosted Bubble Chandelier brings sculptural elegance to dining spaces. It’s not just about illumination — it anchors the room, adds drama, and draws your eye exactly where it should go. Suspended above a dining table, it helps define the space while creating an inviting glow that makes every meal feel a little more special.”

Ally Dowsing-Reynolds, Interiors Expert & Co-Founder,

They’re an especially great choice for open-plan living spaces – suspend a row of pendants above your kitchen island or breakfast bar to help break the space up and define the kitchen area more clearly.

Baton kitchen lights hanging above a kitchen island unit

Image courtesy of @studiofourinteriors

7. Create a cohesive look with matching finishes

For a cohesive look throughout your home, make sure you choose the same metallic finish across all your lighting fixtures, switches and sockets, and other hardware. This will help give your home a polished, high-end feel and effortlessly tie your interior design scheme together.

If you’re choosing lighting fixtures with an antique brass finish, for example, you should also opt for antique brass sockets and switches to match. Think carefully about the look you’re trying to achieve when choosing a metallic finish for your home – gold finishes tend to create an elegant or even vintage look, while black finishes are more suitable for a sleek, modern look.

8. Reflect light around the room with mirrors

A great lighting hack for small rooms is to use mirrors to bounce light around the space, which has the effect of making it feel much larger and brighter than it really is. In bedrooms, consider installing mirrored wardrobe doors to brighten up the room without taking up too much space. In your living room, mirrors could be placed in key areas such as above the mantlepiece or directly opposite windows to reflect as much light around the room as possible.

When planning where to put your lighting fixtures, bear the position of your mirrors in mind – lights should ideally be placed close to or angled towards the mirrors to bounce the light around most effectively.

9. Install under-cabinet lighting

When it comes to kitchen lighting, installing lights underneath your cabinets is a practical and stylish way to illuminate your countertops and provide the ideal task lighting for prepping, cooking, and cleaning. As well as serving a functional purpose, under-cabinet lighting is great for adding depth and dimension to your kitchen and helps maintain a clean, modern look because the fixtures themselves are hidden.

LED strip lights are easy to install and great for providing continuous light along the length of your cabinets. Alternatively, for more focused, spotlight-style illumination, consider opting for puck lights.

10. Save space with wall lights

Getting your bedroom lighting right can be tricky, especially if you’re short on space. If you have small bedside tables, traditional bedside lamps probably won’t be the most practical option. Instead, consider opting for wall lights on either side of the bed so your limited table space can be occupied by other bedside essentials like your alarm clock and phone.

Wall-mounted lights also add a clean, uncluttered look to the room and have a polished, hotel-like feel.

linen shade on a gold traditional wall sconce

gold Grantley wall light with ribbed glass shade

Room-by-room lighting guide

Living rooms

The living room is the most multipurpose room in your home, used for everything from socialising with loved ones to unwinding at the end of a long day. Your living room lighting should reflect this, which means layering different light sources is a must. Make your ceiling lights dimmable to set the right mood with ease and use plenty of table lamps to create a cosy ambience. A task light in the form of an angled floor lamp is also a good idea to provide a comfortable light for reading or working late on your laptop.

Bedrooms

Your bedroom should feel like a cosy sanctuary you can retreat to when you need time to rest and relax, and the lighting you choose plays a huge role in creating this ambience. Opt for bedside or wall lamps with warm bulbs on either side of the bed to create a soothing effect while also providing sufficient task lighting for activities like reading. For bedrooms with high ceilings, pendant lights above the bed are great for creating an attractive focal point.

Image courtesy of @summerhousestyle

Landings and hallways

Landing and hallways are typically long and narrow, so spotlight bars are the perfect lighting choice to ensure every corner is well lit. For your entrance hallway lighting, consider opting for a statement pendant light or chandelier to wow guests from the moment they arrive.

Kitchens

The kitchen is another multifunctional space, requiring practical lighting for tasks like cooking and cleaning while also serving as a social hub. Pendant lights over your kitchen island or dining area are perfect for striking the right balance between functionality and style – just be sure to make them dimmable so you can switch between task lighting and cosy ambient lighting with ease. Under-cabinet lighting is also essential for illuminating countertops and ensuring high visibility while preparing meals.

Bathrooms

In the bathroom, place plenty of bright task lights around the mirror to ensure the best level of visibility when applying makeup or shaving. You should also include some more cosy, ambient lighting for when you want to enjoy a relaxing soak in the bath. Don’t forget to use appropriate IP-rated lighting, especially for lights positioned directly above the bath or shower.

Show us your stylish home lighting designs

We’d love to see how you’ve used these home lighting design ideas to beautifully illuminate your home. Tag us on Instagram @dowsingandreynolds – we can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with!

Written by: Lyz

Meet Lyz, our brilliant Head of Customer Experience here at Dowsing & Reynolds. When she’s not busy improving customer journeys and ensuring customers are considered at every touchpoint, Lyz loves nothing more than quad skating, making scented candles, and reading books on her favourite subjects - which range from interior and graphic design to quantum physics!