ArcaMax

It’s very hard to keep up with all of the improvements in building materials and products. Thousands of new things hit the marketplace each year. You need to focus on just one or two verticals to stay abreast of all that’s new.

Lighting is a category that might keep you busy 12 hours a day. Designers and architects who specialize in lighting design must be in hog heaven. Not only are there new lighting fixtures of all types introduced each year, but there are also new bulbs that help them achieve the exact look they’re shooting for.

Several months ago, I was tasked by She Who Must Be Obeyed to gather several new interior ordinary light bulbs for lamps. I knew she wanted a warm bulb in the 2700K range. Much to my surprise, I was able to purchase affordable LED bulbs that allowed me to choose the color temperature of the bulb myself.

These A19 standard bulbs came with six settings: 2700K soft white, 3000K bright white, 3500K true white, 4000K cool white, 5000K daylight, and 6500K daylight deluxe. That’s a huge range of color temperature. Other types of bulbs are available with these same settings.

Are you about to tackle a bathroom or kitchen renovation in the new year? Perhaps you’re building a new home. You have a unique opportunity to create layers of light in one or more rooms. This layering effect is what many lighting designers do to create that feel when you see dramatic photos of custom homes or lavish hotel suites.

Lighting and color temperature are powerful tools you can employ to set the mood in a room. My son and I did this in his basement speakeasy. He was going for the 1920’s Prohibition-era look. The lighting needed to be subtle, warm and soft. We achieved this using stunning pendant fixtures that hang above the bar. Each fixture has an old-fashioned light bulb featuring clear glass and a bulky tungsten filament that you’d see if you jumped out of a time machine into a hidden, smoke-filled bar one hundred years ago.

Soft LED light strips attached to the underside of the overhanging bar top in the back-bar area provide enough light for the bartender to do his job. Overhead, tucked up behind a soffit, we hid two spotlights that produce a soft cone of light on the shelves used to store the spirits. It goes without saying that all the different lights are switched separately.

I stayed in my son-in-law’s condominium in Bass Harbor, Maine, over Christmas. He’s making improvements room-by-room over the next year. I helped him over the phone a month ago, solving a switching conundrum in his daughter’s bedroom. The original builder didn’t install any overhead lights during the transformation of an 1880’s sardine factory into eight residential condos.

He decided to install small track lights on either side of a giant roof-support beam. Two of the fixtures are aimed at a craft/desk area, and the other two will provide soft lighting over the two single beds. Track lights allow you to install light fixtures that can do very specific jobs.

He’s going to install an interesting variety of lights in his lower-level office. He needs separate lights for his desk area, one or two over a large racing simulator, ceiling lights that highlight shelves on a wall, and another light or two to shine on a wall-hung display case.

Are you starting to imagine how you can do many of these things in your own home? You can do lots of this in an existing home with minimal surgery to walls and ceilings. A competent electrician can use a fish tape to get cables to places you’d think impossible.

My daughter rounds out this lighting discussion. She just completed a bathroom finishing project in the past month. Years ago, I roughed-in a full bathroom on the third floor of her home. It was time to finish it off.

She’s always had a flair for decorating and design. She even wrote a book about it 15 years ago called "The Meghan Method." She’s an expert at lighting design.

I feel she outdid herself in this modest bathroom. She loves to use furniture for her sink areas instead of traditional bathroom cabinets. You can count on the furniture to have 6-inch tall legs. This allows her, or you, to install an indirect light under the furniture. A soft, warm glow of light washes over the white marble floor in front of the sink area.

A nearly invisible thin LED light was installed on top of the marble backsplash. It’s designed to cast light up the wall, not into your face, blinding you. The shower area has its own set of lights, as you might expect. The mirror over the sink comes with its own soft LED light built into the mirror.

You can get additional inspiration by peering at hundreds of photos online. You can do image searches on all the major search engines. Be specific about what you want to light. Use those keywords in your search. This small amount of research will pay vast pleasure dividends once you see what’s possible in your home. Be sure to save the photos so you purchase the right fixtures. The photos will also help the electrician who will be installing the cables and wires to make your lighting dreams come true.

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©2026 Tim Carter. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.