The Best Way To Light Up Your Extension
The current problems in the housing market mean that many homeowners are giving up trying to move house, and deciding to extend their existing house instead. If you are one of them, you will have realised that, however big or small your extension is going to be, you are going to need an electricity supply in there. If more than one room is involved, it is likely that a major wiring upgrade will be needed.
Low Energy Fittings
In case you are tempted to try doing any of the electrical work yourself, remember that all new building work, including extensions, is subject to building regulations, which include electrical work. As well as requiring that all work should be done by a qualified electrician, another provision is that at least one room in three in a new build should have dedicated low energy light fittings installed. Dedicated low energy fittings are fittings which will only take low energy bulbs.
LED or CFL Bulbs
There are various types of low energy bulb, the two main ones being CFL, or compact fluorescent lamps, and LED bulbs. CFL bulbs are considered the better choice for rooms where plenty of light is required, as they are brighter, as well as using up to 80 per cent less power than incandescent bulbs. In addition, they never reach high temperatures.
LED lights, on the other hand, have an incredibly long lifespan — in fact, once you have installed an LED bulb there is a good chance you may never have to replace it. Many LED bulbs come in two different colour choices — warm white and cool white. Warm white bulbs give a more natural, atmospheric light, which provides a pleasant illumination for bedrooms and living rooms, while light from the cool white bulbs is whiter and crisper, for rooms like the office or kitchens where brighter light is required. However, most users feel that LED lights on their own are not really bright enough to light a whole room on their own, and are more useful for effect lighting, such as highlighting a shelf display.
Plan Out Your Requirements
If your extension is a bigger one, with several rooms, you are of course going to need extra lighting circuits, as well as additional mains power loops. At an early stage in your planning, you need to plan out the extension, in your mind or on paper, and work out where the lights are going to be. You should decide whether you want wall lights or central lighting, or both, and whether low voltage lighting is an option. An idea that is becoming popular is a separate circuit for all table and standard lamps, working from a single switch.
Although finances are tight in the current climate, remember that it is most unwise to carry out this work yourself. This is not just for safety reasons, but because under the building regulations, work done by yourself is most unlikely to receive a certificate. By all means work out your plans and ideas beforehand, but it is essential to get an electrician to put them into practice.
If your home is located in London, contact Expert Electrician, for a friendly north London electrician service at competitive rates.
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How To Use Entryway Mirrors For Adding Light To a Dark Space
Mirrors are for more than just getting dressed every day. They can be used as decorative pieces or to make a small space appear bigger. With so many choices in shapes, styles, and sizes, your options are endless. If your home is lacking in natural sunlight or has very few windows, mirrors can be the answer to a dark space. A mirror in the right place can reflect indoor light, and give the illusion of a brighter space. This makes mirrors helpful in all different rooms and spaces in your house.
Lighting It Up
There are obvious rooms in every home that can use help with lighting. If you have turned a den, basement, or attic into a workspace or home theater, it is very possible that there is no natural light coming in. These spaces do well with large hanging mirrors. Mirrors will reflect the space as well as the unnatural light, giving the illusion of a brighter area. Mirrors have the ability to open up a confined room and make it more comfortable for everyone. They are great for back bedrooms that only have one window or do not get any sunlight.
Small Spaces Work Well
Smaller spaces with no windows also do well with mirrors. With entry-way mirrors, you can create a big impact in the front area of your home. Entryways are typically dark and mirrors cast light from an open door. It will be the first thing guests see when they come into your home. Other areas that can use them are hallways and stairways. Hallways and stairways are always lacking natural light. These areas are passageways that are used by everyone all day. Mirrors can make these spaces brighter and really open them up. They can also be used as decorative items in an area that is in need of decor.
Mirrors In The Living Room
Depending on the layout of your home, you may have bigger spaces like your living room that receive very little natural light. With living room mirrors, you can reflect whatever light you do have in your space. It will create a warm, homey feeling, making you and your guests comfortable. Small living rooms often suffer from lack of light. A large mirror will brighten a small living room up and make it appear double in size. Living room mirrors can also act like centerpieces on your walls. Instead of hanging artwork, a large mirror can be a unique and beautiful replacement.
Entryways, hallway, and dens can all benefit from the addition of a mirror. It will have a major impact by brightening up your space.
Eric Blair writes about home improvement methods, interior design ideas and how bubble glass can be used creatively for room decor.
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Create the Look of Designer Lighting at Affordable Prices
All home decorating enthusiasts will tell you that you can create a great atmosphere in a room with the correct lighting. Whether it is with floor or ceiling spot lights, lamps, or even candles an atmosphere can be created with each and every lighting feature.
Designer lighting looks great in your home and will back up as a feature piece utilising both the light and design in all the right ways. However designer lighting can cost a fortune. So, if you don’t have thousands of pounds to spend on lighting for your home then look around online and home stores and there is no doubt that you will find a replica of that designer lighting piece you had your eye on or even one that you prefer much more.
Here are some ways to make your home look like it is filled with expensive designer lighting without spending a fortune.
Style
The style of the lights that you choose is probably one of the most important factors when it comes to creating the look of designer lighting. Look at lighting designers from over the years and what it was that have made their designs such famous pieces.
Heathfield & Co
The Heathfield & Co collection for 2012 is definitive; screams in style yet would look great in almost any home and not just the uber-stylish. Their lamps have unique and striking stands that look great and their bubble effect shades make them stand out from the rest. To mimic a Heathfield & Co lighting collection in your home then go for lamps and wall lights with an edgy stand but with a plain angular fabric shade with no pattern .
GUBI
Established in Copenhagen in 1967, the Gubi lighting collection is famous for its thin elongated stands and distinctive heads and shades in striking colours. Gubi’s semi pendant lights are ultra-modern and sleek. To create the Gubi lighting look in your home go for sleek lengthened stands with simple clean line metal heads.
Viva Terra
Viva Terra lighting is original yet suitable for bedrooms and lounges and isn’t just reserved for grand hallways and dining rooms. Their style of designer lighting takes each and every fine little detail and makes it exquisite. To mimic Viva Terra’s Moroccan lighting collection find antique copper hanging lamps with patterns that have been created from punctured holes.
Husdon Valley
Hudson Valley has gone against the norm of huge amounts of detail that other chandelier designers favour. If you would like to create the Hudson Valley look of lights in your home then choose rather plain lighting with angles and plain fabric shades.
Yasmin Holloway is an interior styling enthusiast that loves the elegant and unique designer style lights from http://www.desresdesign.co.uk. For more tips follow Yasmin on Twitter @YasminHolloway.
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Crystal Clear – How to Care for Chandeliers in Six Easy Steps
Once upon a time beautiful crystal chandeliers were only to be found in stately homes or in the mansions of the rich and famous, but nowadays improved manufacturing techniques and greater availability of raw materials have enabled many of us to enhance our halls or dining rooms with classy-looking and elaborate crystal chandeliers.
Historically, chandeliers were designed not only to look aesthetically pleasing but to maximise illumination by dispersing and refracting available light through their many individual crystal glass prisms. Those same design principles hold true today, so if you want to your chandeliers to remain sparkling and impressive they’re going to need occasional TLC, and that absolutely does not mean sticking them in the dishwasher once a year.
Keeping your chandeliers looking as good as new is simple with our easy to follow six-step guide.
Step 1 – Take pictures
Take a few photos of your chandelier from different angles, especially if it’s a particularly elaborate design with lots of prisms. Having a photo to refer to when you’re putting your chandelier back together after cleaning will help to ensure that every piece will go back where it should and that you don’t find yourself with a couple of spare crystals at the end of the re-assembly process.
Step 2 – Prepare and carefully disassemble your chandelier
Ensure that the lights are switched off and the bulbs in your chandelier are cool before you begin. Ensure that a cushioned surface (such as a folded duvet or a bean bag) is placed directly below your chandelier to catch anything that may fall as you disassemble your chandelier. To avoid damaging the chandelier’s wiring or fixture, work around the chandelier instead of twisting it when removing the prisms and other ornaments.
Step 3 – Wash the glass prisms and ornaments
Fill a sink or washing up bowl with very hot water and a little washing-up liquid. The hotter the water the better the results you’ll achieve so you may wish to don a pair of rubber gloves. Immerse each of the prisms and ornaments in the hot, mildly soapy water for a moment before rinsing thoroughly –again with hot water – and laying on a towel to dry. Chains of prisms should be held in both hands when washing in order to prevent them from tangling.
Step 4 – Clean the chandelier’s main fixture
Whilst your chandelier’s glass prisms are drying, clean the fixture itself with a dry lint-free cloth or kitchen towel and some glass cleaner. Spray the cloth rather than the chandelier fixture itself to avoid creating ‘spots’ and, if necessary, carefully give the bulbs a quick clean too.
Step 5 – Put it all back together again
When the chandelier fixture and bulbs have been cleaned, begin to reassemble the chandelier beginning with the pieces at the centre and working your way around and outwards. Again using a lint-free cloth or kitchen towel give each prism a very quick polish as you replace it to remove any residual moisture or spots. Don’t forget those photos you took in step 1 if you have trouble remembering where all of the pieces of your chandelier go.
Step 6 – Admire your handiwork
Once you’ve put your cleaned chandelier back together, replace the bulbs (if you haven’t already done so) and turn the lights on to check that everything is as it should be and to admire the renewed sparkle and brightness of your impressive lighting. That’s it – you’re done! You shouldn’t need to follow this chandelier cleaning routine more than twice each year, but if it seems too much trouble, don’t be tempted to give your chandelier a quick hose-down with the pressure washer as an alternative; get someone in to clean your chandelier for you instead!
O’Brien’s Lighting are Irish retailers of crystal lighting
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How To Enhance Your Home With Wall Lights
In recent decades home-owners have become increasingly aware of what a difference lighting can make to their home. Lighting is no longer simply a means of illumination, but a way of influencing the whole mood and atmosphere of different areas of the home, as well as affecting how comfortable we perceive it to be. In addition, the type of lighting we choose says a lot about what sort of people we are.
Many Other Solutions
Up till quite recently, almost the only type of lighting you could have in your house was a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, with a shade over it. This was not particularly friendly, and the light it cast over the room could be quite severe — not to mention inadequate. Now, however, there are all sorts of other lighting solutions to enhance your home, and among these wall lights are probably the most versatile.
Advantage Of Wall Lights
The main advantage of using wall lights is not only that they provide a much softer glow than a ceiling light, which can be quite harsh even with a pretty shade, but also that they can be placed almost anywhere in the room, and direct the light at different angles, depending on how they are fixed to the wall. This means that they can fulfil different functions in different rooms in the home. In fact, there are few if any areas in the house which cannot be improved with wall lights in some way.
Think First
However, wall lights come in all shapes and sizes, so before rushing out to buy a set, you need to think about which room you want them for, what activities are carried out in this particular room, and what mood you want to create in it. If the activities carried out in that room need a strong light, wall lighting will be an extra, rather than the main source of illumination. For instance, in your study or office, you will need a strong light for doing close work — wall lights are not really ideal for this, but can be used as an add-on to make the room more attractive.
Whatever You Need
There are so many different styles of wall light that there is no need to buy first and think where to put them afterwards. If you look at the range from Wofi Lighting, who have been the leading player in wall light design for more than half a century, you will find a range to suit every possible requirement. So you can survey your home, decide what will enhance it best, and you will be sure to find it there.
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