How to choose lights for interiors?

Ever wondered what kind of lights will look perfect for your home, office or any space that you have? We buy a home of our dreams to live a life of dreams in it and we put all our energy to build/buy a house. We call it a home and not just a flat or a bungalow because we possess it to keep our family safe and comfortable.

How often do you buy lamps for your home? It is only when you complete the final touches of interiors you think about lights. These lights are installed not because you want illumination but because lamps look good, everybody has one or two lamps as a show-piece and they hardly help illuminating the house. Sometimes they just fit perfect and sometimes they do not even serve the purpose of lighting but they just throw light.

In office interiors the lights have only one purpose i.e. to lighten up all corners, so that its a bright light and keeps everyone awake. Have you ever wondered that good lighting with well thought design can increase productivity of your employees??

Ever wondered that illumination technology can actually make you healthier mentally and eventually physically?

 There is the whole world of illumination technology out there and you just install lights for your space without even giving it a thought.

Open your eyes to the light that will make you happier, healthier and productive.

Here are some tips on how to choose lights?

Lighting design is a growing field of consultancy in abroad and now in India. People have started realising the importance of lighting and light fixtures, and the importance of a methodology to use it at right places at right proportions, to make spaces function properly and for the users to perform efficiently in whatever task they are up to. Ideally, we should choose, lighting and not just light fixtures or lights. For choosing right lighting, we need to think if lighting at the very start of concept. If we need wall washing lights or floor embedded lights or even ceiling embedded lights, same needed to be installed during the civil construction itself. Buying light fixtures for given points will be a last choice. There can be different ways of lighting depending on the concept of interiors and tasks, including direct lighting, indirect lighting, ambient lighting, task lighting, focus lighting etc. All these should be well planned ahead in conjunction with interiors and a lighting designer’s role becomes very important for achieving the best of results.

Need of coordination

What we require to build a space with ideal interiors and ideal lighting, is a very high amount of coordination between the architect, interior designer, electrical consultant and lighting consultant. At KIARA, we execute interiors as well along with lighting, with customised furniture solutions, to ensure proper coordination of all aspects. Even otherwise, it's always better to discuss the options at very first stage of the project to ensure meaningful amalgamation.

(Interiors done by Kiara)

Magic of lights

A space can behave totally different in a day and night. A formal space in the morning can suddenly change to an informal setting during late evenings. A busy space can well be a meditation space. A loud space can well be a romantic space. All this can be achieved by the magic of ambient lighting, using right concept of fixtures. A great combination of direct and in direct lighting, combined with floor stands, table stands, hanging lamps, candle LEDs etc. can create moods that can enthral your souls.

(Interiors done by Kiara)

Energy efficient lighting

Apart from making the space look magical and unique, it is also important to ensure we don't waste energy. As we said earlier, lighting always doesn't mean bright lighting. It means right lighting, whether bright or dim depends on the space, mood, task and time. We also have energy efficient LED lamps, for all fixture choices including LED filaments to match traditional and rustic concepts. We can also depend on atomisation for saving the energy more.


It is very important to enquire about the energy your lamps will consume before installing them. In this home as per the image above, we decided to go ahead with energy efficient lamps. Using LED lamps gives you the liberty and it is very much in trend.



(Interiors by Kiara)

The ceiling hanging lamps in this house are just 8 watts each, they radiate good light and give good ambience.

Lights to match different concepts

The wide variety of choice helps us to match any interior concept. The choice of materials and style has to be made in accordance with the total design language. There are choices to match all concepts, whether classic or traditional or rustic or ethnic or contemporary or modern. If lighting is given the same importance as we give for furniture, flooring or painting, we end up creating unique and charming spaces, which are well knit together. Often, lighting becomes a last choice, and us left to pick and keep at the last moment, from whatever is available at the nearest shop. This leads to a complete collage of elements which will constantly challenge each other creating a tension in the space. Ideally, lighting should be thought of at the very conceptual level, and should be given same importance as any other interior element. For customisation of lights or for the production of locally made lights, sufficient time would be required before installation at the site.

(Note: this information is as per Vanthia Veedu magazine for 'Smart lighting'  article)