One of the very important (and rather hard) aspects of interior design is lighting. It’s common knowledge that the right lighting makes everything appear a lot better than it actually is, which is why interior designers put so much emphasis on it. However, choosing proper lighting is a lot of things but easy, because we, mere rookies in interior design and ambiance creation, most of the time have no idea how to make the right choice from the rather vast offer of lighting products.

For that reason, this post will focus on the use of indoor wall lights, which as a term generally refers to a category of lighting products that are small and wall-mountable. As such, these lights can be used to provide a few different types of lighting. Take a look.

Task lighting

Task lighting refers to exactly what the term says: lighting for performing a task, like reading, doing homework, cooking or doing some craft work. It’s generally a small amount of light pointed in a specific direction and purposed to illuminate whatever it is in its immediate environment. Task lighting is usually needed in rooms such as the bedroom, where indoor wall lights are positioned above the headboard for late night reading without having to disturb your partner. Task lighting is also ideal to use over kids work desks as an additional light source when doing their homework.

Ambient lighting

When you want to create some kind of ambiance in a room, a pair of ambient lights positioned on the right walls can help you a lot by providing overall, general illumination. This lighting is usually used when you don’t want to illuminate that much but just give it a warm and soft lighting tone that allows you to perfectly see and function there. It goes perfectly well in rooms with tall ceilings where sconces can be installed higher on the side walls.

Accent lighting

While ambient lighting has a bigger lighting purpose, accent lighting is used to create drama in a room. Therefore, you’d be using smaller fixtures with a lively design and in some cases, coloured bulbs. It depends on just how much drama you want to add. A good tip is to install sconces with dark shades which force the light to radiate from both directions: up and down. Lighting the space this way, they create an hourglass shape on the walls which act as dramatic shadows. You can also use this type of lighting for illuminating art work or plants in your rooms. If you do so, make sure it’s a lot brighter than the ambient lighting in the room.

As you can see, there are a number of ways to use indoor lights. It’s important to choose the right fixtures for your room design and colour scheme so when they lit the room it feels like they’re in harmony with it and aren’t just randomly picked and placed. And finally, choose them according to the purpose they serve, whether it’s task, accent or ambient lighting.