Contemporary lighting is key to a modern home. Therefore, it is clearly not suitable for all occasions, or more specifically periods, of interior design. Often when lay people attempt to decorate themselves they do so from a very superficial, highly diluted starting point. They watch DYI television shows. They read books with titles similar to “Decorating for Dummies”. They peruse back issues of Martha Stewart Living and think they’ve got the idea.

Unfortunately, nine times out of ten, they couldn’t be more mistaken. Forgetting the intensively complex art of Feng Shui for a moment, even the very basic act of decorating a home in the most simplistic way possible calls for a certain level of knowledge that a lay person with no education or experience simply does not possess. Such small differences between say, antiquated versus contemporary lighting can have a grand impact on the final results.

Quite honestly, the inappropriate use of contemporary lighting in many of today’s more middle class homes often appalls me. Just because the title is “contemporary lighting” does not mean it is suitable for use in all abodes that exist in the present.

If, for example, the decorating scheme of your house is to style it with furniture crafted only before the year 1893, or if not authentically crafted before the chosen date than with inauthentic furniture that appears to be made before then, than it would be highly unsuitable to employ the strategy of illumining your home with contemporary lighting.

If however you’re goal is to take a minimalist approach and lightly enhance the shape of each room with gentle pieces of modern furniture, to capture as often as possible every minute ray of natural light that flows in your house’s direction and to subtly make visible the necessities at night than perhaps contemporary lighting is appropriate for your circumstances.

Really, and I know this will be much to the chagrin of your avid internet researcher/middle class home owner, there is no short list that I can give you with which you will then be able to determine whether or not your decorating idea should include contemporary lighting. Shaping a house into a home is, again to the chagrin of my little do-it-yourselfer, much more complicated and involved than that.

It is, at the least, a labor intensive undertaking that should be left solely in the hands of those trained in the knowledge and wisdom of interior design. At the most it is a high form of art that even those who have the training may not be qualified for, but only those that are blessed with the gift of vision and creativity can successfully go at with spectacular results. I strongly urge the public that one should not, one cannot, begin to think of installing contemporary lighting without consulting such a bestowed upon professional first.