Chandelier for the living room - a central element of lighting
Lighting plays one of the key roles in the design of space. Properly selected fixtures can help create a cozy, comfortable atmosphere in the room. For such an important room as a living room, where it is customary to gather together as a family or a campaign, lighting fixtures are selected with special attention.
Often the living room is filled with various functionalities - all households gather here to discuss the past day, watch TV or read a book. A home office or study area can also be located here, sometimes the living room is combined with the dining room or game area. And if your apartment is designed as a studio, then almost all living segments of the home can be placed in a large living room. And all these nuances will need to be taken into account when choosing the central element of the room lighting - the chandelier.
It will be important not only to determine the design, size and power of the lighting device, but also to choose the location, light intensity, brightness and even color of lighting correctly.
In addition to its main functionality - lighting the living room space, the chandelier also performs the tasks of zoning, accenting and, of course, decorating the room. Properly selected intensity and brightness of the room will help not only visually expand the space (if necessary), but also provide a functionally filled area of the living room with a sufficient level of illumination.
The center of any apartment or home ownership is the living room, here you gather friends and relatives for celebrations or take small campaigns for evening gatherings, it is here that important family decisions are made or communication just takes place - the exchange of information between households. Therefore, the choice of a chandelier for a common room should be a joint activity for the family, because all members of the family and not one year will observe the play of light reflected from many decorative elements of a luxurious chandelier.
If earlier (at the time of the emergence of the central lighting fixture of the room) the chandeliers were made of very expensive materials and were available only to wealthy classes of society, nowadays it is not difficult to find a model of a chandelier that suits a homeowner by all criteria, if there is a budget of any size. There are a lot of design options for lighting fixtures, execution styles and materials for manufacturing - a wide range.
Before sending to the store in order to purchase a chandelier for your living room, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with a few simple criteria that will affect the choice of a lighting model that will harmoniously fit into the created or planned interior of the room:
- the size of the room and mainly the height of the room;
- the presence of additional areas within the living room (library, study, dining room, reading corner);
- the presence of related lighting devices (floor or desktop floor lamps, wall sconces, etc.);
- the presence of built-in lighting on the ceiling, structural elements of the room or furniture;
- general color palette of the room;
- interior style;
- dimensions of the main furniture (soft zone of the living room);
- the presence of a fireplace.
Types of chandeliers for the living room - design features
Pendant Chandeliers
This type of chandelier consists of one or more shades mounted on a cord, string or chain. Pendant chandeliers are usually located at a sufficiently large distance from the ceiling (their length can be adjusted depending on the height of the room). Ceiling lights in hanging chandeliers can be made of fabric or plastic, but the most popular products made of glass.
Depending on how long the suspension will be. A different atmosphere of illumination is created in the living room - solemn or more intimate. The nature of the illumination will also be affected by the brightness and color palette of the light fluxes of the central lighting device.
The disadvantages of this type of chandelier can only be attributed to the inconvenience of use in small rooms with low ceilings. But, given that the living room is almost always the largest and most spacious room in home ownership, this problem is removed by itself.
Ceiling chandeliers
This type of lighting has no suspension and is attached directly to the ceiling. For small rooms or low ceilings, such chandeliers can be an ideal option for designing a lighting system. Ceiling lights for chandeliers are also made of plastic or glass, can consist of several segments or represent a single integral design.
Ceiling chandeliers have one small drawback - as a rule, it is impossible to change a bulb without removing the lamp cover.
Choose a chandelier according to the style of execution
Classic Chandeliers
The most popular and common type of chandelier is the classic version. For many of our compatriots, the very word "chandelier" is associated with this type of lighting device. The traditional chandelier has smooth lines, its appearance is luxurious and presentable, it is able to decorate a room made in the classical style as well as a modern room decorated in the spirit of the latest fashion trends in the design of the premises.
For plafonds of classic chandeliers, traditional materials are used - glass, textile, crunching and metal. For many Russian homeowners, a crystal chandelier is still a sign of not only wealth and luxury, but also the presence of good taste and style.
Paying tribute to those times when real candles were used in the design of chandeliers, classic models are most often equipped with imitation of bulbs with holders that resemble the old way of lighting large spaces.
Another obvious advantage of classic chandeliers can be called timeless compliance with trends. Traditional lighting products for living rooms never go out of fashion, their appearance slightly changes over time. And that means that your investment will be justified for many years.
Classical chandeliers are refined and elegant, they are able to give a sense of celebration to almost any room in the living room. Even with neutral room decoration, modest furnishings and minor decor, the living room will shine with luxury if the chandelier looks amazing.
In a wide range of classic chandeliers, floristic style instruments can be distinguished. It is easy to guess by the name that in such chandeliers a floral and generally vegetative theme is actively used - for the manufacture of plafonds and decor elements for structures.
Often in modern interiors you can find models of classic chandeliers that are harmoniously combined with design elements of decor and designs. For example, a traditional chandelier placed inside an originally executed sphere or a lamp with a two-level execution of structural elements in different styles.
A classic chandelier ceases to be a familiar lighting fixture for traditional interiors, if colors and brightness are added to the design of its decorative elements. Such models will already be successfully integrated into modern living rooms in an eclectic style or become focal points in rooms with a minimalist atmosphere.
For the styles of Provence, shabby chic and some areas of country style, a variation of a classic chandelier using a metal frame without unnecessary decor and using suspended glass elements may be suitable.
Art Nouveau Chandeliers
Once the modernist style was called everything new and progressive, which appeared in contrast to traditional stylists. Nowadays, almost all designer models of an unusual (not traditional) form are called chandeliers in the modern style. Chandeliers in this style harmoniously fit into a modern interior, minimalist rooms, eclectic designs.
In modern design projects, you can often find chandeliers made in the form of a single base, to which many strings or chains with shades are attached. Sometimes all strings are located at the same height, forming a kind of bunch of shades with bulbs, but more often the strings are located at different levels, creating interesting light compositions.
For the contemporary style, the most intricate design of the ceiling chandelier may be suitable. It is in this style that the art object will harmoniously look (it is impossible to name modern design models of lighting devices in another way) as the focal center of the living room.
The bright, unusual design of the chandelier can transform the completely boring and even austere atmosphere of the living room. Moreover, the brightness of the lighting device can be not only obvious - expressed in a colorful color, but also with the help of an extraordinary approach to the shape and decor of the lighting subject.
In modern living rooms, chandeliers with minimalist decor are increasingly seen. Simple geometric shapes, the absence of hanging elements and the uniformity of the color palette, together create very concise models that can decorate almost any interior of a living room.
A bright chandelier can harmoniously fit into the colorful interior of an eclectic living room or become a center of focus in a bright, neutral room common to the whole family room.
Eco-friendly chandeliers
Despite the fact that eco-style is often associated with rustic motifs in the room, it is also successfully used in the design of city apartments, town houses and even public spaces.
Obviously, the presence of natural materials for the manufacture of chandeliers in an eco-style is necessary. Wood and metal become central components of structures that can be decorated with tree branches, straw, herbaria and other elements that can connect the urban life of the homeowner with the nature of the environment.
And yet most harmoniously, eco-style chandeliers look in the spacious living rooms of suburban households. Filled with the warmth of natural materials and decor elements, such lighting devices resonate not only with the same raw materials used for decoration and furnishing of the room, but also with the very atmosphere of proximity to nature.
Zoning space using a lighting system
As a rule, ceiling chandeliers in living rooms are installed in the geometric center of the room. But recently, more and more common family rooms have two or more pronounced areas of the room. If your living room is combined with the dining room, then the logical move would be to illuminate not only the main space of the recreation area, but also the highlight of the dining group.
If you combine two or more living segments of the room within the same space, you can choose one of two options for organizing lighting - use two chandeliers to illuminate the corresponding areas or leave a ceiling lamp in one segment, and for the other choose an alternative option: floor lamp, wall lamps or table lamps (depending on the functionality of the zone).
Most often, designers and homeowners, deciding to install two chandeliers in the living room, choose the same models to maintain the symmetry and balance of the room. But the option with models different in execution, but close in style (to each other and to the style of your room) can become a highlight of the interior and bring to the room not only an element of surprise, but also make its design more unique.
For some living rooms, it will become a logical arrangement of the chandelier not in the center, but, for example, away from the fireplace or near a soft zone, which can be either a sofa or two armchairs separated by a stand table. The nuances of the location of the chandelier on the ceiling depend on the occupancy of the living room with furniture and areas with different functionalities.
The presence of several sources of lighting in the living room allows each member of the family to do what he wants, while remaining in the general campaign. The upper light emanating from the chandeliers of the common room, in turn, is able to unite households and their guests for a common lesson - conversation or game.
And finally, a little boring, but very useful information about the criteria for choosing a chandelier for a living room, based on the technical characteristics of the lighting fixtures:
- the optimal and sufficient power of the chandelier for the living room is considered to be 150-350 W (depending on the size of the room);
- modern chandeliers can use either ordinary incandescent lamps or LED, fluorescent and halogen ones. The light from incandescent lamps is most readable for the eyes, but such light sources have very low efficiency and they consume a lot of electricity. The service life of incandescent lamps is the shortest of all possible light sources. Fluorescent lamps (fluorescent) are about 4 times more powerful than incandescent lamps and will last almost 10 times longer. You just have to decide on the color temperature of fluorescent lamps. The cold range of lighting is more suitable for rooms where you need to work, read, and be creative. For a calm and relaxing atmosphere of the living room, a warm palette of lighting is more suitable. But do not choose too warm tones - the eyes will get tired very quickly. Halogen lamps are usually used when necessary in bright and saturated lighting. If your plans include constant homework and the living area is not the only place to relax in a house or apartment, then which lamps will help to save on electricity and changing new light sources. LED lamps are often used for efficiency - they consume the least electricity and can last for many years. But this type of light source is not suitable for any room (it all depends on the size and functional content);
- There are many models of modern chandeliers with a power regulator, with the help of which you can create the atmosphere you need, depending on the tasks that the living room should perform at the moment.