Recessed Light Tips

Recessed lights are a beautiful, innovative solution that can help you give a modern look to your home, while also opening it up visually and making everything look more roomy and pleasant.

Many people tend to not realize that this type of lighting should be applied in a different manner than standard lights though - there are several important aspects about properly arranging your recessed lights to make sure they properly fit the interior of your home and improve its looks, instead of sending out a message that you didn't know what you were doing when setting up the lighting.

First and most importantly - avoid using recessed lights in the center of the room, especially in a grouped formation! The idea of recessed lights is that they can illuminate key areas of the room while giving enough light to the entire area, as opposed to regular lights which are aimed at spreading the light evenly across the entire room.

They don't even have to be placed symmetrically - it may sound like a bad idea, but just play around with some configurations that involve placing a single light above a few important places/pieces of furniture in your room, and you'll see how much more freedom you get from using this type of lighting.

Try to maintain proper spacing between the lights and whatever object you want to accent with them. For paintings and other pieces of art, the ideal distance is 8-10 inches, while for furniture and other large items, you should go for about double that distance - 16-20 inches is often the ideal measurement.

There's also a neat little trick not known to many, related to calculating the ideal spacing between the lights themselves - take the diameter of the light in inches and use the same number in feet - i.e. lights with a 6-inch diameter go best when placed 6 feet apart. Of course, this isn't universally applicable, and certainly not accurate down to the last inch, but it can be a good estimate to use as a starting point.

Placing square recessed lights around the walls can be especially beneficial if you want to make the room feel more spacious. The light "pushing" into the walls makes them seem more spaced out, in result giving the place a more roomy look. Use this to your advantage, but don't overdo it as the effect can backfire - too many lights can make the room feel cluttered and unorganized.