Now when it comes to trends and Interior design it’s difficult to know where to look or what to believe. I mean, who’d have thought that Pineapples would be so huge, who predicted that one – and do you have a pineapple in your home, I bet you do?

I must admit, I don’t pay that much attention to trends, if it looks good, then I gotta have it. Does it ‘spark joy’ (aka Konmari method of decluttering which I am recently entrenched in) then it wins my vote. So it won’t surprise you that I only recently created my first, YES, my first gallery wall. (plus it’s only a fiddly one)

Ta da.

I’m so slow, I suffer a bit of DIY paralysis at times and try and over plan any decoration in my home. I’ve planned my gallery wall for ages, but I was missing key pieces, so of course I couldn’t put it up half cocked (as they say up North!)

But it seems that the gallery wall is on the way out and so what’s coming in to replace it?

Gallery walls have been replaced with Grid wall hanging (or whatever it’s called – I’m sure someone will come up with a cool name for it). 

Here are some examples;

So, to cushion the blow a little. The grid wall system does still lend itself to the gallery wall as long it’s hung in a regimented way?

Verdict?

What do you think? Are gallery walls on their way out ( I hope not). Even if they are, I say Blah blah blah. I didn’t want to be trendy anyway.

Next week I’m buying myself a golden pineapple, putting meaningful words on my wall and painting all my furniture with chalk paint.

Please tell me you’re as untrendy as me and we can wallow in our untrendy smugness.

Jx

To be in with your chance of winning the Marie Kondo Life Changing Magic of Tidying or the Konmari method of tidying and decluttering, head on over to my instagram page and follow the 3 simple rules. The draw is Sunday 24.1.16 (midnight). Good luck.

Alternatively – buy it through amazon – currently on sale. Click here.

Want to know how I get on with it? Subscribe here and I’ll let you know how my first attempt goes.

And unwind…………….

source: homebuildingandrenovating.co.uk

Is it possible that lighting design in your bathroom has any effect on how you live your life?

This is the question I am posing?

Is there any connection between the 2? bathroom and lifestyle!?

Let’s go back to the nuts and bolts.

• Where do you start the day (once you’ve dragged yourself out of that nice warm cosy bed).
• What’s the first room you visit in the morning?
• What’s the first thing you see when you go into the first room you visit in the morning?
• What’s the first thing you think (or say) when you see the first thing in the first room you visit in the morning?

Do you see where I’m going here?

More often than not, from the moment you wake up at OMG o’clock your introduction to the day starts in the bathroom.

Aspiration 

For me, lighting design in the bathroom is soooo key. First thing in the morning, I don’t want to see anything normally except the toilet and the shower. I certainly do not want bright lights glaring down at me and illuminating my face at that time.

The perfect lighting design in this situation is some low level lighting – at floor level is just fine, and even better if it’s on a sensor so I don’t have to grope around for a light switch. I just walk in, and the low level lights fade on and I see pretty pools of light down by my heavily socked feet (I have circulation issues and the coldest feet in bed in the world – well so says my long suffering partner!!)

Once my eyes have accustomed to some form of lighting I’m ready for some more – but not too bright please. I press my dimmer switch and the wall lights either side of my basin mirror spring to life. They give a soft glow to my face and I don’t look that bad I have to say. Of course my eyes have not quite adjusted to the morning and everything is a little blurred – but that’s good for me.

One of the first bathrooms I designed. 3 lighting circuits. 1) wall lights 2) spotlights 3) led floor lights

It’s shower time and I have enough light to do my bits and pieces and by the time I get out of the shower I switch on the main downlights and everything in the room is glowing brightly and I’m feeling refreshed and enlivened and ready to face the day ahead.

That’s my perfect morning with my perfect lighting.

Victorian bathroom I designed. 2 lighting circuits

Reality.

I designed my bathroom 9 years ago. At that point I was not working in interior design. I had no idea that you should or could have more than one source of lighting in a bathroom. I grew up with a single pendant light – and now, in my teeny tiny bathroom I have 6 – yes you read that right – 6 halogen downlights. The heat from these alone – warms the bathroom without the need for a radiator.

When I enter in the bathroom at random points in the night – all 6 lights beam down on me (actually 2 have recently blown and I’m loathed to replace them – but let’s ignore this fact for my story for now).

So 6 hot halogen downlights come on. I only want to go to the toilet – but I’m now fully awake and I walk towards the mirror (which is no difficult task in my teeny tiny bathroom). EEK!! (polite word in case my father reads this). I run back to bed. Tell myself that it’s not time to get up yet anyway and I have more time for the alarm to sound and my eye bags to reduce in size and then guess what!!!

ALARM – BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!!!!

Really!! I have to get up NOW. I’ve just seen myself, and I need WAY more sleep. I go back into the Blackpool illuminated bathroom . The day has not started well.

Do you see my point now?? Is it just me? Has anyone else got the worse bathroom lighting EVER!!

Do you agree – your bathroom lighting really does affect your life. Better lighting therefore leads to a better life (Simple)

How’s your bathroom lighting looking? Would you change it if you could or have you got it just right? If you have, send me a pic.

In my next post – I’m going to give you the best tips ever for getting your bathroom lighting right on whatever budget you have.

Please subscribe so that you don’t miss a single little lighting thingymabob.

So you’re thinking of using LED Strip Lights? But not sure where, when or how to install? What’s the benefit over spot lights? Are they expensive to install? What do you need to buy? These are some of the questions I get asked if I suggest using LED strip lights.

First of all I am not a specialist lighting designer and neither am I an electrician. I have dabbled in electrical rewiring of a house (long before the current regulations came into force) and I have designed a number of residential lighting schemes, so I understand a fair bit about electrics and lighting.

In my last blog post on bedroom lighting, I said that I’d give you the low down on LED strip lighting. This form of lighting is relatively inexpensive but can create real mood and ambient lighting. It tends to give a ‘wash’ of light rather than anything directional or specific.

It can be used in a variety of ways and I’m going to share with you my 5 top tips of what you need to know in order to install it (or how not to install it) so that it looks like you’re a lighting professional.

Hopefully, from this blog you’ll come away with a little more know how and might even sound like you know what you’re talking about when a client asks you about the benefits of LED lighting. I’ve included in here some of my personal experiences, where it’s worked well and where it’s gone badly wrong, so hopefully you won’t make the same mistakes.

What is LED strip lighting? 

In it’s simplest and least expensive form, you can buy LED strip lighting on a roll or you can buy particular lengths of it.

The roll of strip lighting can be cut to the desired length and there are places marked on it where you can cut it.

My top tip when buying strip lighting, is to work out how much you are going to need and buy it all at the same time. Why? Quite simply, there can be gradual differences in the light colour emanating from the LED strip. It’s a bit like buying the same batches of wallpaper. There’s nothing worse than LED light strips around the room which have slightly different colours!! I’ve done it – and it’s a costly mistake as you have to go back and buy it all again.

You can also buy strip lighting in a rigid format which you can then stick into your desired location. I have never bought this, so I’m not going to pretend to know what I’m talking about. It doesn’t give you much flexibility so I’ve just not bothered with it – and therefore nor should you!

What sort of light does it produce?

The light strips are made of tiny LED lights. The general effect it produces is an ambient/ mood type of lighting. It can also be used to good effect as task lighting, and I’ve done this recently in a bathroom where I put a large mirror in a niche area and then placed an LED strip light in front of it. It looks amazing. I will post some pics on instagram or twitter over the next few days so make sure you’re following me so that you can see the pics.

When it comes to the colour of the LED strip – you can either have white lights in various shades or coloured lights (RGB), which are all the colours of the rainbow. You need to decide what you want to go for – whether white or RGB.

The white colours of LED strips you can get vary from a very cool blue light called – wait for it – cool white through to a daylight/ natural white to a very orangey yellow light called warm white.

When you are buying LED light strips – you will need to specify the colour temperature in degrees Kelvin. Hopefully your dealer will have a display showing the temperature of the LED strips they sell so that you can make more of an informed decision.

Cool light tends not to be very flattering. Natural white is popular in bathrooms as it closely resembles natural light. I have only ever installed warm white LED lights and coloured ones (much to my disapproval).

If you wish to buy the coloured LED strips then sadly I have no personal experience of buying these. One of my clients had them installed in his bar area – but the electrician specified them. Personally I’m not so keen on the coloured LED strips but they can be pretty effective. Moreso in commercial spaces – but that’s just my personal opinion.

Where will I install it?

The world is your oyster. The places that I’ve installed it (and below are some pictures from client’s houses) :-

• In the kitchen, above the kitchen units and low level at the top of the plinth.
• In a bar area, under the worktop in the bar (these are the colour changing LEDs).
• In shelving, both at home and in one of the pictures below
• On a shelf in a lounge opposite the TV (bad area to install as you can see it when the tv is on). Didn’t think about this when I suggested it and client berated me about it afterwards. (no picture of this).
• Bathrooms – in front of a large inset mirror (pics to follow on instagram and twitter)

What are the pitfalls?

When I first installed LED strip lighting in my house, many years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. The electrician I used also had little experience of this type of lighting and didn’t give me any advice when installing it. I even went to the professionals to buy all the bits and pieces and still I received little installation advice. The one piece of advice omitted from me when I installed the LED strip lighting to my lounge shelves was to install it within ‘an extrusion’.

An Extrusion (Aluminium strip) and opaque cover strip

An extrusion is an aluminium channel and one of the benefits from installing it in this channel was that when the LED gets hot, the heat can transfer throughout the extrusion as opposed to the LED overheating and then turning a different colour. Originally I installed warm white in my shelves and now the strips are a mix of warm and very warm white as a result of no extrusion fitted and some of the LED lights have overheated and failed. You can see from the picture that the strip light isn’t uniformly lit.

What do I need to buy?

So if you’ve decided to purchase, here’s my check list.

• LED strip tape (calculate how much you need before you go there. You can buy a reel in 5m or 10m I think, but if you need less then they will cut it for you).
• Extrusion and cover strip (optional) – again calculate the amount of lengths you will need. I know it comes in 1m lengths, not sure if it comes any bigger.
• LED power supply (transformer) – this will vary depending on the total length of the strips to be lit on each circuit. The electrical supplier will calculate which transformer you will need.
• Connecting strips – if you are connecting LED strips on the same circuit.
• What colour you want. If you’re wanting a warm white, you’ll be advised on something around 3400 degrees Kelvin.

Helpful?

I hope this has given you some food for thought and you will be more confident to buy, install and advise on LED strip lighting. If you have a good electrician, then they should be very knowledgeable about everything you need to think about.

Please let me know if I’ve missed anything or if you have any questions on LED strip lights.

Jane x

images: houseandgarden.co.uk and carlaston.com

• What does the ideal bedroom lighting design look like?
• How many lights should I have in my bedroom?
• Can I use downlights on a dimmer switch to create mood and task lighting?
• How expensive will it be to rewire my bedroom?
• How can I create the right atmosphere?
• What’s the best way to light the bedroom?
• Are there any lights I shouldn’t use

These are some of the questions I get asked by my clients.

When I grew up, bedroom lighting consisted of a central pendant light and a desk or bedside lamp if you were lucky. Is this sufficient lighting for a bedroom?

In some circumstances it might be. But how do you know what’s right for you and what your needs are?

I think there’s some common questions you can ask yourself and I’ve covered these in my top tips. Let’s see if we can create the perfect bedroom lighting design?

• Assess the space.

images: homeedit.com and blogthedpages.com

What does this mean?

Quite simply, what do you use the bedroom for? It’s not a silly question. People don’t just sleep in their bedrooms. People do all sorts of things? Read, work (it maybe the only space available for their work desk), dress, romancing (sounds old fashioned – like courting but I mean having a bit of rumpy pumpy (I’m just like Miranda – I can’t say the word s%x), meet with friends (I’m thinking teenagers as I don’t often invite my friends to my bedroom – unless I’m showing them my newly painted black walls!).

Once you’ve assessed the space – you will understand what you need light for. For example, the average woman would need to sleep in there, read at night before bed, get changed and put makeup on. That’s 4 different things to do. Ideally you should have task lighting (for changing), an overhead pendant, which is dimmable for general lighting and mood lighting, or when I’m romancing!!, adjustable desk lamp for makeup application (on soft focus setting of course) and bedside lights for reading. Sound too much? Not if you want to do all of those things properly in your bedroom it isn’t. The right light makes me effective in the bedroom – if you know what I mean!

• Right lighting design for right task. For example, if you have mirrors in the bedroom, ensure they are well lit with flattering lights.

Images: marieclairemaison.com and momtastic.com

You understand this – yes? How many people have got ready for work in a poorly lit room – looked in the mirror and thought – it looks ok (I know I definitely have). You get to work and go to your brightly lit washroom. Your top has not been ironed (yep – that was me too). You have some baby sick on your shoulder that didn’t wash out (Yep – in the past this has been me also). You’ve got odd socks on – or odd shoes – I have seen this (not me this time – phew!)

You are not feeling confident as a result – all because of poor lighting in your bedroom. SORT IT OUT. This is similar to the first point – but this addresses the first point with using the correct lighting source for the task.

• Install a dimmer switch.

I read an article by Sally Storey, Creative Director of John Cullen Lighting. This is one of her top tips in household lighting and seriously it’s a simple game changer. BUT research before you go out and buy a dimmer switch – common problems that I’ve encountered:-

1. The back box for dimmer switch often needs to be bigger than standard back boxes. Check what you have before buying a dimmer. When I say check, you may want to call an electrican at this point unless you are handy with electrics and careful – i.e. switch of the power to the switch before unscrewing anything.
2. Are the lights that you currently have installed – dimmable? If not – can might just need to change the bulbs or worse case scenario, you have to change the fitting? If you’re unsure – ask your sparky whilst he’s checking your back box!! Oh dear, that sounds a bit dodgy – doesn’t it.

• Layer your lighting.

Images: AbigailAherne.com and domainehome.com

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? I hear you cry. This is where you create different lighting effects with different types of light. You might have a mixture of lighting sources from downlights to wall lights to pendants to table lights. Can you have too many lights in a room – nah. Not according to Abigail Aherne who has 18 different lights on the lower ground floor of her house.

• Don’t put all your lighting on one switch.

This is a bit obvious. But if you have a pendant and then wall lights on the same switch – then you’re not going to have a great lighting experience. If you have 3 lighting circuits, i.e. one central decorative pendant, wall lights either side of the bed and niche lights (highlighting a decorative are) on a dimmer, then you can create 6 different environments.

• Introduce decorative lighting for wow factor

images: mommodesign.com and boweryhouse.org

This could be in the form of a decorative chandelier, some fairy lights, dramatic bedside lights. Let your imagination run wild and see what you can create.

The tips don’t stop there – but it’s a start. Lighting design can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. If you’re just delving into it. Keep it simple. If you’re going through a house or room refurbishment and you’re not sure how to go about changing your lighting, then please drop me a line.

Hope it’s been insightful, feel free to leave a comment below if you have any more questions or comments.

The next blog will be looking at LED strip lights. How and when to install. The pros and cons and what I’ve done wrong on installation – so that you don’t fall into the same trap. If you want to see this post – please subscribe and you’ll get an early heads up as soon as it’s posted. If you have any specific questions you want answering about lights, again, drop me an email an I will respond immediately.

cheerio (for now). xx