Our living rooms are now multi-faceted areas that are used for everything from watching television and reading to dining, entertaining and hobbies. With a well planned livingroom lighting scheme, you can create the illusion of different spaces for different activities all within one room.

The lounge is one area of the home where accent lighting really plays an important part. One can use it to highlight various points of interest for example a collection of books, glasses, pictures ornaments. For a rosy, welcoming glow choose tungsten bulbs to enhance your livingroom lighting.

Try not to position recessed down lighters at either end of the sofa or above other items of furniture as this will make your living room lighting system too static and you may want to move your furniture around at some point in the future. Wall lights can be mounted beside fixed features that won't be moving for example in alcoves or on either side of a fireplace.

You can choose your fittings to suit the style of your chosen scheme be it a period look, where light fittings such as Tiffany-style lamps would be appropriate or a minimalist hi-tech chrome track for a contemporary decorating design. To give a cozy glow to your living room lighting use table lamps dotted around the edges of the room wither on shelves or small tables as they radiate light inwards adding a spacious feel to the room.

Wall washers give a good level of illumination to your livingroom lighting but it is important to remember that the resultant reflected light will be tinted by whatever shade your walls are painted. For a romantic evening at home or if you are entertaining don’t forget that a real fire and candlelight supplemented by wall lights dimmed to their lowest setting adds atmosphere and creates a wonderful welcoming and warming effect.

One of the latest innovations is living room lighting is to install a voice-activated system so you can command your lights to switch on and off simply by speaking. If you opt for this, then commission a lighting designer to install it and while he is at it, a digital lighting display, which changes colour in timed sequences or in response to music will really set your scheme alight!

The visual space in a small living room can be made to feel bigger by lighting one entire wall.  This can be done by using recessed light fittings that are mounted on the ceiling. In order to get the best effect they must be positioned an equal distance from the wall and each other. Alternatively to make your living room seem larger it helps to continue the livingroom lighting outdoors by lighting gardens, shrubbery and water features that are visible from the room.