Houston Outdoor Lighting, Indoor Art Lights, Landscape Lighting Designs, Home Automation Blog

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Home & House Lighting Plans

What are some good free sources of ideas for home lighting plans?
You can get a wealth of free information from the Internet. If you feel like getting out from behind your computer and stepping out, try going to a demo home and looking around. Or, if this is not convenient, stop by a local bookstore or newsstand and look through interior design and home realty magazines. Because these publications are by nature artistic, they are ideal sources of inspiration for creative ideas of your own home lighting design. You do not have to spend any money to do this, either. Thumb through the magazine and take a few mental snapshots of what you see. Your own mind will modify and adapt these images and help form the beginnings of a plan.

Should I meet with my architect and my builder to work out a home lighting plan?
We recommend that you visit both. Your architect will most likely be planning your home lighting from a neutral, purely functional perspective. He or she will think along the lines of what works best in terms of general lighting, light regulatory compliance, and energy savings basics. However, if you talk to your architect about your personal preferences and lifestyle, this will go a long way toward personalizing your house lighting plans before they ever reach the builder’s desk.

Meeting with the builder, then, will help you plan for more advanced lighting design and controls should you ever want to have the installed in the future. The builder will be working with an electrical subcontractor who knows the ins and outs of wallbox dimming control technology and the basics of how different types of lights will be working in your home. The builder can provide you with invaluable insights into the technical details of your home lighting plan. Later on, after you move in and set up an entirely new life in your residence, you will probably want to either do some upgrades or consider advanced lighting control systems. This often happens to families who move into a house and over time begin to entertain more and more at home. Controls and automation sequences can make a residence rival a public venue when done by a professional skilled in his field. Knowing a little bit about the technical foundation of your home lighting system give you a foundation upon which you can build a more sophisticated, personalized system in the future.

This is also the time to make any last minute changes, or request specialty lighting such as art lights, cabinet lights, home security lighting or decorative display lighting fixtures. Your builder can arrange to have these things added to your home lighting plan, or call us to have them installed.

Should I install my own lights or hire a lighting design company?
You should always have a licensed electrician with credentials install your home lighting. Electricity is never anything to attempt a do-it-yourself stop gap solution with. Working with a firm like Illuminations Lighting Design gives you the dual benefit of licensed electricians who are also lighting designers. You can have your home lighting professionally wired and installed, and you can get advanced planning and decorative solutions developed by the same group of experts.

Where should I begin my search for a lighting designer?
For over 30 years now, ILD has worked with home construction companies and home remodeling firms to help the custom homeowner enjoy the most technologically sound and aesthetically pleasing home lighting control systems possible. Our staff has been cross trained in landscaping, art theory, interior design, and basic principles of architecture and is intended to function hand in glove with the general contract invoice any Houston home construction firm.

Call us at 800-863-1184 today to talk about your next project.Illuminations Lighting Design is a full service design build firm specializing in residential and commercial indoor lighting and outdoor lighting, electrical service and maintenance as well as home automation, home theaters, emergency generators, surge protection systems, phone systems and lighting control systems.

We are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond.

Labels: Home Lighting Design Plans, Home Lighting Plans, House Lighting Plans, Planning Home Lighting Designs, Residential Lighting Houston Texas, Texas ASID Industry Partner

Friday, September 26, 2008

Home Lighting Design Plans

Home lighting designers employee of art, math, and hard science to create new, personalized living spaces in custom homes. Energy efficiency is top priority in both the planning and installation of new equipment, and great care is taken from an interior design perspective to make certain that the new light fixtures installed do not cost the homeowner an arm and a leg in electrical expenses. Custom home lighting design is a complimentary aesthetic intended to harmoniously and seamlessly blend into the many facets of daily life and entertainment. Working with a professional team who has been cross-trained in decorative science and licensed in electrical engineering and extensively trained in interior design will ensure the most personalized and custom lighting systems attainable with today’s luminaire technology.

Analysis of energy efficiency
Because energy efficiency constitutes a now global concern in almost every industry, home lighting designers must begin their work with a careful analysis of existing fixtures. Because California has already banned incandescent lighting, homeowners across the nation have already begun retrofitting store-bought fluorescent bulbs to lamps and overhead lights in places like the living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. These lights indeed save a great deal of power and last for many years as promised. Many times, though, they do not provide an adequate match to the existing fixtures into which they are installed, and the quality of home decorative lighting may diminish if a proper analysis of the equipment is not conducted by a lighting design professional. By examining what has already been installed in a custom home at the time of build out, and by itemizing any subsequent retrofits, ILD technicians can quickly determine the best course of action for the planning of a new system.

Photometric study of lighting levels
To correctly assess both the efficiency and the quality of home lighting, and to design a superior system in the process, our professionals perform a systematic and photometric analysis of your home’s lighting fixtures using a point-by-point scientific procedure. This is done with a highly sophisticated home lighting design software program that allows us to three-dimensionally render every room in your home and see what it would look like with different fixtures, lamps, and angles of lighting incidence. We can literally make a movie of your own home and take you on a walk through of any number of proposed home theater lighting designs we conceptualize as options for you to consider. This gives you the power to see results prior to spending any money, and to choose the best system for your personal lifestyle and entertainment requirements.

Creating of layered lighting effects
Our Houston lighting designers have earned a reputation for leadership in our industry for our unique ability to combine for home lighting design with home lighting controls. By laying down multiple layers of light, we can any atmosphere in any area of your home. When linked to lighting controls, we can use the same fixtures to program multiple lighting themes that can make the same room look like many different rooms, depending on the activities occurring in that part of your home at the time. These controllable layers of light have a powerful effect on human emotions and can be used to set the tone for family gatherings, home theater, musical appreciation, fine art collecting, displays of collectibles, and parties. With the right combination of home automation services and manual controls, you can have instant, one-touch access to a myriad of colors, brightness levels, and special lighting effects throughout the house.

Installation of fixtures with better glare shielding, reflectors, and lamping technology
When it comes to recessed lighting fixtures themselves, our company is a firm believer in taking a “less is more” approach to the actual number of equipment pieces we install. If you place too many visible light fixtures in a room, you can clutter the interior aesthetic and quickly diminish its ambiance. One of our specialties is to room, to conceal whatever fixtures we install as much as possible, relying on precise, mathematical calculation of optimal lighting angles to get more light out of a single lamp. We use only professional landscape lights that are engineered with the best optics, glare shielding, and lamping technology available from today’s top manufacturers. Our equipment is 100% American-made, factory-grade, and backed up with written warranties from our nation’s leading manufacturers. We aim to give you the best in both design and technology so that reduced power costs and minimized replacements help recover your investment over the years to come.

It starts with a simple phone call
Whether or not we are helping you play or work, every home lighting systems is designed to meet the practical needs and personal tastes of the eclectic custom homeowner. Contact us today and request a complimentary initial consultation to assess your home’s current lighting system and see what design and functional improvements can be made that will improve the practical and aesthetic elements of your home’s interior and save you money over time. Regardless of your needs, we can assist with any Houston home repairs.

Where is your main office located?
We are situated in the heart of Houston just west of Downtown at the corner of Durham Drive and Blossom Street, which is located between Memorial Drive and Washington Avenue in the Rice Military Subdivision. Although we are located in Houston Texas we provide lighting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond.Call us today at 713-863-1133, visit our lighting blog or request a consultation online using our contact us form.

Labels: Home Lighting Design Plans, Houston Fine Art Lighting Experts, Lighting Designers Texas, Texas Residential Lighting Plans

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Color temperature of light sources is represented in Kelvin or Correlated Color Temperature (CCT).

Each light source has a unique color temperature that sets the appearance for the environment in which it is used. The actual color of the light that is given off from the source is represented in Kelvin and referred to as Correlated Color Temperature or CCT. A lamp can have a warm, midrange or cool appearance depending on its color temperature. These different color temperatures can set the mood, create an environment, improve a person's disposition, influence a person's buying habits and has even been know to affect a person's appetite.

"Warm" light sources have a lower color temperature, usually in the 2500K-3000K range. These lamps produce more light in the red/orange/yellow spectrum. As color temperature of a lamp increases the lamps appearance becomes "cooler." As the lamp's color temperature increases so does the amount of light produced in the blue end of the spectrum.

Here are some of the various Kelvin color temperatures and common applications for fluorescent lamps:

2700K - 3400K
Warm; Warm White
Specialty Retailers, Restaurants, Hotel Lobbies, Residential Applications

3500K
Neutral; Neutral White
Grocery Stores & Produce Markets, Retail Stores, Bank Lobbies

4100K
Cool; Cool White
Offices, Manufacturing, Schools, Hospitals

5000K - 6500K
Daylight; Daylight Plus; Full Spectrum
Printers, Paint Studios, Art Galleries, Car Dealerships

If you would like to learn more about how light and color can affect your environment, give the professional lighting designers at Illuminations Lighting Design a call toll free at 800-863-1184. They are a full service design build firm specializing in residential and commercial indoor lighting and outdoor lighting installation, service and maintenance as well as home automation, home theaters and lighting control systems. Visit them online as http://www.illuminationslighting.com/.

Image and portions of this content courtesy of USHIO America, Inc.

Labels: Home Lighting Design Plans, Lighting Consultants Designers, Lighting regulations information, Planning Residential Lighting