How to Choose Lighting That Enhances Your Home’s Style

Just as you wouldn’t wear a Cinderella ballgown to a Groovy ’70s theme party, it’s not the best choice to furnish an English Tudor home with a bold mix of color and pattern in the style of Andy Warhol. Your goal is to have a cohesive design flow for your home where not only will you feel more comfortable, but so will your guests.       

Fortunately, most homes have an exterior style that isn’t rooted in either extreme (highly traditional or ultra-contemporary), which means homeowners have a lot of latitude when selecting furniture and lighting that complements their homes effortlessly — once they know what to look for.

Rent Jungle, a leading online search engine for rental housing, lists the most common housing styles in America as: Craftsman, European, Ranch, Mediterranean, Farmhouse, Modern, Cape Cod, and Colonial. While you don’t have to strictly adhere to the architectural bones of your home when decorating, it’s good design practice not to have a completely divergent look. Cape Cod, Colonial, Ranch, and even Farmhouse residences can share a lot of the same decorating styles without having furnishings seem out of place. 

Here’s how to choose lighting that suits your home to a T!

Am I Traditional?

The hallmarks of a Traditional decorating style include “classic” details such as leaves, columns, and scrollwork; materials such as marble, crystal, and brass; and often darker woods or gold leaf and brass metal finishes. Classic or traditional shapes in table lamps include urns, fluted columns, and spindles.

In lighting fixtures, the multi-arm chandelier is perhaps the most traditional shape, with much of the ornamentation and finishes the same as with the table lamps. Chandeliers typically have four to six “arms” holding one upward-facing candelabra bulb (representing a “candle”) at each end. Square, four-sided metal lanterns – for indoors and outside – are another style that meets the Traditional aesthetic.

Traditional-style lamps and fixtures could work in any of the previously mentioned home styles with the exceptions of Modern and, depending upon the amount of detail, Farmhouse.

How Do I Know If I Like Contemporary or Modern?

While many non-design professionals interchange the terms “Contemporary” and “Modern,” there is a difference. Both of these styles are as far from Traditional as you can get, with clean, unfussy, and simple lines replacing Traditional’s signature ornamentation.

In short, both the Modern and Contemporary aesthetic emphasize the function of the lighting as much as fashion. You may have heard the term “Midcentury Modern,” which is a type of Modern design that originally flourished in the 1950s and ’60s and has been brought back recently by many of today’s furniture and lighting manufacturers because of its Minimalist appeal and hint of a retro vibe.   

Contemporary style, on the other hand, has a more futuristic appearance. While both styles favor neutral, tone-on-tone color palettes, Contemporary is often described as having more rounded lines and is more apt to offer a pop of color as an accent. Unlike Traditional’s dark woods and finishes, Contemporary lighting and furniture features “blonde” and lighter woods often paired with shiny metal finishes such as Chrome or Polished Nickel. Contemporary style is also never static; its look keeps evolving along with the development of materials such as acrylics/plastics as well as LED technology.

What If I’m None of Those?

When a style isn’t heavily Traditional, Modern, or Contemporary, interior designers refer to that middle ground as “Transitional.” The Transitional category is where you will find many of the designs popular in lighting today. By including elements of two or more of those styles, Transitional décor can blend in more easily with the existing furniture you already have.

Make My Home a Farmhouse

You don’t have to be a fan of HGTV’s mega-hit Fixer-Upper to see the appeal of the Modern Farmhouse aesthetic. The casual beauty of wide-planked reclaimed wood floors, shiplap walls, vintage accessories, and clean white finishes automatically causes a mental reset to simpler times in a chaotic world.

While the Shabby Chic trend of the 1990s, popularized by Rachel Ashwell, has more of a feminine flair to its vintage flea market finds in distressed finishes, Modern Farmhouse is a touch more pragmatic than romantic. For example, chicken wire finds new life repurposed as pendant lampshades and metal tubs and pails are transformed into lighting fixtures.  

What the Modern Farmhouse look gives to homeowners is a warm, cozy feel of the familiar, a hug from generations past. The light-colored woods and bright white finishes that also distinguish the style provide an instant visual freshness to any room.

Modern Farmhouse is neutral enough at its core to be able to enhance the living environments of many home styles from Ranch and Cape Cod to Colonial and Split-Levels. Its casual, relaxed aesthetic appeals to many of today’s lifestyles. 

Where Does Industrial Fit In?

Once relegated to loft spaces that were formerly used as factories, the rough and heavy look of commercial-grade components (i.e. unfinished wood beams and steel pipe, large-scale metal hooks and chains, oversized straps, and weathered finishes) has become more refined and scaled down to fit the average residential interior.

Today’s more genteel versions of Rustic or Industrial lighting have the rough appearance of being torn from the rafters, but without the danger of hidden nails, splinters, or missing screws. The materials used might be authentic reclaimed wood or recycled glass and metal, or they might be freshly made to resemble those time-worn, reclaimed pieces.   

The Industrial look works best in rooms with a Rustic Farmhouse aesthetic, where it could easily be imagined that the lighting fixtures were hand-made by repurposing farming tools or discarded scrap. High-ceilinged lofts in renovated historic buildings can effectively utilize the unfinished beauty of Industrial-style lighting. This raw style may also be used as a visual statement that accentuates the homeowners’ philosophy of upcycling and recycling goods to minimize one’s carbon footprint.

You Can Find What You Need at LightsOnline

Regardless of the type of home you live in, LightsOnline has a comprehensive assortment of lamps and lighting fixtures that will capture your lifestyle and aesthetic simply, beautifully, and affordably.

Read more:

• How to Use Lamps in a Room
• Get the Midcentury Modern Chandelier of Your Dreams at LightsOnline
• How to Choose a Statement Light Fixture for Your Room
• The Complete Light Sizing Guide