How To Make Your Home More Cozy With Lighting

Get your lighting right and your space will be transformed into a place of warmth and joy similar to Santa's grotto. Get your lighting wrong and you might accidentally recreate the vibe of your local maximum security prison. Which, judging by some of the DM's I get, I'm gonna go ahead and assume some of you are already familiar with that ambiance. Since finishing my home I came to the realisation that I really didn't like a lot of the lighting in my house so in today's video I'm gonna be zooming around swapping out bulbs, adding lamps and shifting furniture but most importantly I'll be sharing some of the most helpful tips that I've come across when it comes to lighting your home effectively. So to start with the basics, if your home kind of feels a bit cold there's a good chance that it actually is in lighting terms. The good thing is this is a very easy fix because it simply means just changing the temperature of your bulbs. Again, we're starting with the basics but light temperature is measured in something known as Kelvin and if you want to go for the cosy, warm glow feeling you want to stick it around 2700 Kelvin. To do this you have two options. Number one is just picking up some basic bulbs which have 2700K written on them and option number two is a bit more extravagant but that's going with smart bulbs which allow you to actually adjust the temperature of the bulb using an app or a smart home assistant. On the topic of temperatures I should say that it's important to not mix temperatures of bulbs. If you have cold bulbs and warm bulbs in the same room it can end up looking a bit weird and chaotic. So having mentioned smart bulbs my next tip is just switching to smart bulbs. These days smart bulbs are more affordable than ever but if they're still a little bit out of your budget and you have the ability to wear socks then I've got a side hustle with your name written all over it. Not only do smart bulbs give you the option to change the temperature of your bulb, the ability to dim them means that you can adjust the brightness depending on the time of day or your mood. Instead of having one fixed brightness like you would with a regular bulb you can keep them light during the day when you're working and doing tasks and then during the night when you're winding down and want things to be a bit more cosy you can drop them down to like 50 or 25% to give a much more warm and soothing glow. Before starting this video only a couple of my lights were smart so job number one in my house was going around and swapping out all my regular bulbs to smart ones. When switching over to smart bulbs I found it's best to stick to just one brand for all of your bulbs because then it means all of the bulbs work together seamlessly and you can control all of them under one app. For my bulbs I'm going with Philips Hue just because they're kind of widely regarded as the best option but there are much more affordable options out there as well. For anyone curious I'll leave links to all of the bulbs and lamps that I use down below. So next I'm going to speak about my biggest light and gripe in my entire house and that is the under counter LED strips that I have. These have done my head in ever since I put them in because instead of getting one clear line of light you get all of these individual dots reflecting off the splash back and I just think it looks terrible. This is probably quite a niche tip but for anyone who wants to avoid that similar individual dots on their LED strips I'd recommend getting an LED strip which explicitly mentions no light spots. So I bought one which says exactly that no light spots and that's what I'm going to replace this one with which has been giving me a headache ever since I put it in. Now as I get stuck in and sort out this major light and concern I'd like to mention today's sponsor Incogni and how they've helped me fix a major safety concern. For those of you who don't already know Incogni is basically decluttering for your personal data. Online it is nearly impossible to control where your information ends up because of data brokers which are companies that collect your details from things like public records, social media activity and old accounts. They then sell that data to whoever wants it. In the best case this leads to more spam and annoyances for you, in the worst case it's a safety concern. 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So if you want more control and less stress in your life when it comes to your personal data give Incogni a try using the link below and the code PATCHY for 60% off an annual plan. This next tip is one that surprised me quite a bit just because of how effective it was when I actually tried it out for myself and the tip is don't forget your outdoor spaces. I'm well aware that I'm exposing myself as a bit of a weirdo here but I don't tend to put my blinds down at night just because Tigger has a tendency to chew them when they are down. The downside to doing this aside from exposing myself to peeping toms and sock hunters apparently is that when it's pitch black outside your windows but bright inside it can make the space inside feel quite a bit smaller. By adding even just a little bit of light outside it adds depth and makes the space inside feel a bit bigger. It almost feels like the room inside extends beyond the walls when you do this. Unfortunately despite how easy it is to just flick a switch and have the entire room fill up with light when you use the ceiling light this usually gives off a harsh and flat brightness. So instead of using the big light it's a much better idea to use smaller lamps dotted around the room at different heights because it just creates a softer and more interesting look in your space. The downside to this is having to go around and individually switch on and off all of the little lamps as you use them. Getting distracted by the cats. I know I'm banging on about them but this is another area where smart bulbs are really handy because you can retain the same convenience of the big light in that you can turn all of your lamps on and off with just the press of a button in an app or with a voice command but you gain a completely different and cozy atmosphere. As a little side note sometimes you won't be able to add a smart bulb to your lamp like with this donut lamp I have but you can still add a smart plug which lets you access that smart on off functionality. When moving away from the big light one of the questions you might have is how do you effectively light the whole room then and one potentially obvious answer to that question which I personally found very helpful was to ask myself where are the dark spots. In practice this means starting off with sorting lights where you actually sit or do things like a lamp for reading next to your sofa or under cabinet lighting for where you prepare food and then building out the remaining dead spots with pockets of light. The end result of this is that you create a room which feels more balanced more soft and more intentional to how you actually use the space. Now while you can diffuse light by using frosted bulbs or lampshades one of the things that I really like to do is just hide my light sources so that they cast a nice cozy glow onto the furniture or wall around whatever object I have it next to. While quite a lot of my lamps are out in the open I've also hid quite a few as well down the back of my TV down the side of my sofa and behind my bedroom mirror and I just do this in places where I want that soft cozy glow without seeing the direct harshness of the bulb. I know I could dim the lights so that they're less harsh but there's just something that I quite like about having the light bounce off the surrounding walls and the effect that that creates. Not all lamps do the same thing or create the same feeling so it's a good idea to mix them up a little bit add some variety and what this is helpful for is stopping your place from feeling repetitive and just a bit more well designed. To be honest this is one of the areas where I'm just not practicing what I preach. While I do have a couple of interesting lights obviously the donut from Ikea and this little mushroom fella from Zara quite a lot of my other lights are just glossy round ones from Ikea. I do like these and I'm in no rush to change them but I'd like to add some more groovy ones over time which leads to my next point of lighting probably isn't something you'll get perfect in one go and will more than likely be something that you just improve and refine over time. I'm definitely still just figuring out lighting but I think even some of the changes I've made in this space over the past couple of days have made a big difference to how it feels and how it functions. The beauty of lighting is just how much it can completely alter your home. Even if you keep the same furniture and layout but add some new bulbs, new lights, new lamps it can completely change the vibe and is something that I just think is quite exciting and easy to do when it comes to improving how your home feels. If you enjoyed this video or found any of it helpful then I'd appreciate you leaving a like and subscribing for more. Thanks for watching and I'll catch you all in the next one.