“If you’re building a puzzle with your child you want to have brighter light, but when the child goes to bed, you don’t want to sit and relax in a bright space.” The key, according to Krug, begins with understanding the different kinds of light available to you.
“There’s direct and indirect light, decorative light, ambient light and task or functional light,” she told me. Each has different properties and different uses. Task lighting, for example, is designed — as you might expect — to help you complete a task, like reading a book or preparing a meal. Its purpose, first and foremost, is functionality. But it can also be used to add a little drama to a space. Ambient light, on the other hand, is a sort of base layer of lighting. It provides low, even light, free from deep shadows. It helps set the mood in a space.
“You need to understand the programming of a space to allow for the proper types of lighting,” Krug says. This means thinking about what you use a room for. “You walk into a hospital ER and the light is all task. It’s not about creating a mood, it’s about being able to see.”
A home, on the other hand, requires a more diverse lighting selection. “You pick different furniture based on how you want to entertain,” says Krug. “You pick different lighting for the same reason.”
This might mean having a few well placed pot lights in case you need to find a lost contact lens, but not depending on them for cocktails or a dinner party. For that, you want to think about lamps and fixtures with a more ambient glow. Krug highlighted the Tom Dixon Mini Melt Chandelier, a stunning series of orbs that emit a soft, warm light. She also suggested getting the right hardware to help get just the right luminosity.
Luckily technology can help. Things like contemporary dimmer switches, high-quality LED lights and dim-to-warm bulbs — which take on a warmer, more relaxing hue when dimmed — have made tailoring a space to your changing needs easier. One thing Krug loves is a dimmer switch in bathrooms. “There’s a reason people like to light candles in the bathroom,” she says. “With the right bulbs and the right fixture, you can have the same experience.”