Author Archives: Bev Martin

It’s not easy to become a 5-star host for AirBnB, a short-term rental listing site. Hosts who participate in the sharing economy by renting out rooms or their  entire homes rely on good reviews to boost profits. By using basic home lighting ideas, it’s possible to impress guests and give them a feeling of safety and security. When starting an AirBnB or HomeAway business or listing your home as a rental property, consider a few areas that matter to the guest or tenants from a lighting perspective.

Curb appeal

Some AirBnB guests will simply cancel a reservation if the drive by your home and it looks unsafe. Having safety and security lighting helps potential guests find the lock box or key. Many guests don’t arrive until after dark. Provide adequate and stylish lighting at the entryway and along any sidewalks leading to your home. Some of the popular décor styles for outdoor lighting include modern, contemporary, Modern Farmhouse, Bohemian, Mid-Century modern and industrial. Your outdoor entryway lighting should match the interior design style inside the home. The inside foyer is also an important area for guests who want to see their way around an unfamiliar home.

Ceiling fans

In addition to being able to see the books they are reading at night or find their way around a well-lit home, AirBnB guests like to control the temperature. Consider installing ceiling fans in a few key areas of the home for guests who like it colder. When placing the furniture, place the bed or sofa so that it’s not directly beneath a ceiling fan, but a bit off to the side. Ceiling fan lights also extend the living space to the outdoor patio.

Landscape lighting

A lot of guests like to spend time outdoors while staying at AirBnB. Some guests like a budget-friendly experience but still want to feel pampered on their vacations or travels. When setting up outdoor entertainment and sitting areas, focus on the landscape lighting. Proper outdoor lighting draws attention to beautiful flower beds, birds, butterflies, outdoor décor accents and trees. Guests who want to walk around at night also appreciate good landscaping light.

At Yale Lighting, we help real estate investors visualize what they want with 3 showrooms that showcase the latest in indoor and outdoor lighting. For more tips on the best lighting for your AirBnB and home lighting ideas for a real estate investment, please contact us.

When you host a dinner party, you want to make a fabulous impression on your guests. An excellent way to do this is to awe them  with your decor. In a formal dining space, it’s either the table or the lighting that becomes the focal point of the room. Once covered with dishes and food, the look of the table disappears. However, if you make the lighting the focal point, it’s something that your guests will see throughout the meal and won’t soon forget.

Opulent Lighting Ideas

Antique — If you love incorporating antiques into your decor, choose an antique-looking light fixture for your dining room. Opt for a 15-light chandelier to impress. Choose a style with a moonlit patina. This type of lighting, with its thousands of moon-dusted crystals and gold finish, will become a conversation piece in your home. Hand-sewn, silk shantung shades will add even more elegance to this gorgeous chandelier and enhance the look of your dining room.

Traditional — For a lighting fixture that’s equally impressive but more traditional, select a 49-light chandelier with hundreds of glittering accents. This eye-catching design comes with strands of clear or golden-teak crystals. The gems dangle from tiers of glass-coated steel arms, which come in a variety of finishes such as black, chrome, gold, golden-teak, or white to fit your decor.

Theatrical — If you want to make a bold statement, try a theatrical-looking light fixture in your dining room. Hang a stunning 18-light chandelier with a faux alabaster shade that’s trimmed with a dramatic border in a Greek Key or fret design. For a truly striking look, select a fixture with eight arms that embrace hand-blown, etched glass globes from France and also display a golden finish on a Lyre pendant. With hardware in light burnished brass that completes the look, this chandelier will keep your guests in awe.

Transitional — For something a little more contemporary but with a taste of European sophistication, try an 84-light chandelier. This grand piece will impress everyone with its sheer size and beauty. Choose a design with polished crystals for a balance of old and new that will look lovely with multiple types of decor. A chrome finish will provide a modern touch or opt for an Old World gold finish for a more traditional appearance.

Modern — If you want a trendy, modern look in your dining room, try a 40-light chandelier that comes in soft gold, bronze, or a silver leaf finish. A design with modern sculptural blocks of polished, emerald cut crystal glass hanging from adjustable six-foot rods will showcase the contemporary style of your home. The cut of these crystals displays their beauty to perfection and will create a dramatic look that you and your guests will love.

For more information about high-end, opulent lighting options for your home, please contact us today.

Having a light is part of what defines a home. Lighting is what defines our daily schedule. There was a time of course when the  rising and setting of the sun did that, but lighting has extended the days. Artificial light defines modern times. It is a powerful tool in extending human health, emotion and daily rhythm. A person’s ability to see clearly, identify objects, prepare food, attend to personal grooming, and live comfortably rely on the right type of lighting in every housing space. Civilization has gone beyond simple vision. Lighting design focuses on initiating mood. Lighting design can establish atmosphere in a home, even creating the conditions for different mood in different spaces at different times.

Shadow control.

The first incandescent light bulbs were made of clear glass. That allowed for the maximum light intensity but generated harsh shadows and glare. Soon light bulbs made with frosted glass, which softened shadows, largely replaced clear glass bulbs.  Newer lighting designs are being developed around fluorescent and light emitting diode (LED) systems that have very different effects on visibility and light quality. Lenses built into light fixtures allow beams of light to be focused.

Questions for planning.

What are the general principles of lighting design? How do you:

• Generate adequate levels of light for different tasks?
• Provide the right coloration to make things comfortable?
• Generate the right mood conditions?
• Make lighting control easy?
• Control the costs of lighting?

Choices.

Lighting has gone beyond simple utility. Lights have been at the center of decor in the home. Lighting fixtures add color and grace. Lighting fixtures have become sculptures with glowing points or flat surfaces of brightness, made of a full range of materials from shiny metals to textured clays or woods. Lighting can be built into the walls and ceilings of rooms or consist of floor and table lamps that reflect homeowners’ tastes.

When planning the lighting in a room, lighting designers recommend asking some basic questions:

• What do you want to see in the room? Is there a feature of the room you want to be highlighted or do you want just a flat overall brightness? Do you like spotlights that emphasize details or prefer overall lighting from above?
• What don’t you want to see?
• Is there a kind of lighting that you especially like or don’t like?

Older homes and newer homes.

The age of the home is an important first consideration when doing lighting design.

Homes pre-dating the 1970s were typically built with one central lighting fixture in each room. For older homes, improving the lighting may require built-in lighting fixtures may have to be installed in each renovated room. The general principle advocated by many lighting designers is, “light the walls, hide the source.” You may want recessed downlights or architectural lighting, such as cove lighting. Architectural lighting will help you craft your space.

Newer homes usually had some lighting planning in place from the start. They may already have recessed lighting. You may still want to replace the kind of lighting fixtures to provide more flexibility in distributing the light. For instance, you may want to replace a recessed fixture that directs a narrow beam of light straight down for a new fixture that can be directed to wash a wall with light. Even replacing a few light switches and fixtures can make an enormous improvement, making the home seem new.

Replacements and improvements.

You may want to replace the off-on light switch with a dimmer. Dimmers give you full control of the flow of light in the room and can improve your energy efficiency in the home. A lamp dimmed by just 10 percent will double the life of your bulbs. If you take the lights down 25 to 30 percent, you can create a completely different mood in the home.

Yale Lighting Concepts and Design has a huge selection of home lighting features brands, styles, and craftsmanship that inspire brilliant spaces in your home. Please contact us to learn more.

Between social media, home and gardening shows, and the neighbor next door who just completed their renovation, we are  inundated with home updates and the pressure to have an inviting, welcoming space for family and friends. While your fresh paint and tile look great, what’s the point in investing time and money if your lighting is sub par and your guests can’t appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into your updates? Do you think all lights are created equal? If you’re unsure how to provide a comfortable ambiance for every room in your house via lighting, read on for some suggestions on how to up your lighting game.

Foyer Lighting

Starting at the entry point of your home, your foyer lighting should make a statement–not just with a unique chandelier either, but a warm, welcoming, bright light that tells your guests “we’re here!” Make sure the lighting is not too harsh but is bright enough to illuminate the entryway even for those late-night guests.

Living Room Lighting

For living room lighting, you’ll want to have multiple lighting options to suit your needs at different times. Choose a variety of light fixtures such as recessed lighting, lamps, and the like. Install dimmers to seamlessly transition between the lighting needs of family time, work, play, and movie nights.

Bedroom Lighting

Find light fixtures tailored to your home’s style and your preference, whether that’s layered lighting, tabletop lighting, or a combination of both, the choice is yours and yours alone. Ensure the space is properly illuminated, though, for activities that may need to be completed in the dark such as reading, working, or cleaning. Ceiling fans with lighting also work well and perform two tasks at once–find a style of ceiling fan that doesn’t overwhelm the room and doubles as decor.

Bathroom and Kitchen Lighting

Focus on task lighting for these rooms; task lighting provides illumination for specific purposes such as meal prep or vanity lighting. Having overhead lighting to bring light to the entire room is essential, but also keep in mind the possible need for bulb lighting around a bathroom mirror and pendant lighting over a island counter-top in your kitchen.

When designing your home, the options for decor are endless. Let Yale Lighting Concepts help you make your lighting choices simple, contact us today to view our extensive catalogue for the latest styles and designs to complete your home.

 The first room after your front door is where you make your first impression on guests. It’s the room that sets the mood for your  family as it comes home. It’s the room where friends linger when they are saying good-bye. Naturally, you want to make this room pretty and inviting. Accent lighting is a great way to accomplish this. But how do you get the most out of accent lighting for your foyer? What do you pick for the perfect mood enhancer and impression? Here are a few tips.

Keep Size In Mind

Lamps and pendant lights are fantastic lighting touches. They give your room a touch of the classy and quaint while adding a gently, more limited glow. However, if your foyer room has a low ceiling or is narrow, torchieres and sconces would be better accents. On the other hand: your foyer with a high ceiling and a wide hall could use the softening effects of pendant lights and lamps in order to feel cozier and give pleasant focal point in an open space. Figuring out what will fit your particular foyer requires a little fiddling.

What Else Is In The Foyer?

Foyers are great places to put your favorite watercolor painting or vase. It is an instant mood setter. How can the accent lighting you pick work with these art pieces? Putting a lamp, spotlight or pendant light near the artwork gives your guests a better view of it and literally highlights something that makes you happy. Putting the lamp across from the vase, however, can balance out the hall by having equally pretty things on both sides.

Another way that accent lighting can improve on your focal points: it can frame them. Putting matching lamps or sconces on either side the feature gives an ethereal halo around your piece.

What’s The Style?

Is the interior decor post-modern, French Country, or Colonial? If the rest of the house has a certain vibe, your foyer should have the same vibe. You are setting the scene for your house, and the lighting accents should contribute to the scene. If you are looking for a Industrial chic look, you want to pick a lamp in the foyer that looks industrial.

If you keep these points in mind, your foyer will let you set a pleasant mood for every day. When you want to fix up your foyer, contact us. We have the perfect accent lighting for you.