The Three Essential Lighting Types for the Home

The Three Essential Lighting Types

No matter your preferred aesthetic or spatial considerations, layered lighting is the key to success in any room, and the recipe is simple. Combine three ingredients—ambient, task and accent lighting—in a plethora of ways to achieve your desired result and a holistic lighting scheme. Together, these three essential lighting types create vibrancy, complexity and flexibility, able to illuminate every corner and adapt to the occasion at a moment’s notice. There are a number of elements to consider when deciding the types of home lighting you’ll implement. Together, we'll walk through the definitions of the three key lighting types—ambient, accent and task lighting—plus how to best integrate and mix them in your spaces.

Create a Base Layer with Ambient Lighting

Of the essential lighting types for the home, ambient lighting is critical for delivering broad illumination. Interchangeably referred to as general lighting, ambient lighting provides the base layer of light for your room in partnership with natural illumination from outside.

“Ambient lighting sets the tone of a space, either through the installation of a dramatic, statement-making chandelier or minimalist, subtle recessed lighting,” says SONNEMAN founder and lighting designer, Robert Sonneman. 

Chandeliers or linear suspension fixtures provide excellent ambient illumination while anchoring your space. Typically installed above dining tables, entryways or the center of a living room, they add a sometimes dramatic, sometimes nuanced visual intrigue to a space. We recommend the Suspenders Chandelier Collection or a series of Corona LED Pendants. Alternatively, Intervals Recessed lighting offer an understated, minimalist and elegant option for delivering ambient lighting, providing overhead illumination that harmoniously aligns with the spatial configuration of your space.

Highlight the Things You Love with Accent Lighting

With a specific site within your room in mind—a piece of artwork, mantlepiece or credenza serving area, for example—accent lighting highlights the things that you treasure most. This essential lighting type draws attention inwards, creating an attention-worthy effect and adding incredible depth to your space.

Sconces are a modern, effortless and streamlined source of accent illumination. We recommend the Malibu Discs LED Sconce, an architecturally organic form, and the Meclisse LED Sconce, a geometric glass fixture that delights.

Focus with Task Lighting

Similar to accent illumination, task lighting focuses on a particular area within your space. However, rather than drawing attention to a decorative focal point, this essential lighting type is driven by functionality. We use task lighting to read, write, cook and study.

“Task lighting is directional. It’s meant to be functional,” says Sonneman, adding, “You can see this commonly in libraries or studies or underneath overhead cabinets in kitchens, even.”

For lighting lounge areas or reading nooks, we recommend the Pluck Floor Lamp, whose directional downward-facing light balances lithely over key living areas, or the Morii LED Floor Lamp, which provides an industrial interpretation of the traditional pharmacy light. In addition, recessed lighting can also be applied as a source of task illumination above a desk or entryway.

We hope the above guide illuminated the different types of home lighting you can implement to create subtle yet drastic changes to the ambience. If you’re interested in learning more about lighting, discover The Four Core Tenets of SONNEMAN Lighting.