Apart from the right choice of furniture and décor, lighting also plays a huge part in effective home staging. The best home lighting ideas will literally put your home in ‘good light’, which will attract more potential buyers and accentuate the best features of your property.
Whether you’re staging your home for the first time or looking for more ways to enhance your listing, this guide is for you. Here, we discussed some ideas for home lighting together with the mistakes you should avoid. Keep reading to see how lighting can transform your home!
Importance of home staging lighting
Your choice of home staging lights is more than just about keeping every room illuminated. The right lighting design can also bring the following perks to your property listing:
- Making the room look more spacious. The main benefit of lighting for home staging is it allows you to make each room look more spacious. For example, proper lighting can complement reflective items like mirrors to create a sense of openness. It can also help you highlight vertical space to make the room feel taller and ‘breathable’.
- Setting the right ambiance. Lighting is also an effective way to set a welcoming and inviting vibe for your home. This will help buyers connect to your property emotionally and see their own family living in it.
- Highlighting the best features. Lighting and home staging go hand in hand when it comes to focusing attention to the selling points of your property. It can be highlighting the fireplace, kitchen, living room, and so on. With proper lighting, you can direct the buyer’s eyes to the best attributes of your home.
- Adding depth and dimension. You can also use light home staging to layer various sources of light. For example, you can add accent lighting on each room on top of your main ambient lighting. Many homeowners also opt for task lighting like under-cabinet lightings, table lamps, and more.
- Complementing your color palette. A good choice of lighting can also enhance the color palette of your home’s interior. This will make it more inviting to potential home buyers, not to mention that you’ll also have great photos to add to your online listing.
8 home lighting ideas for staging
Here at HolmeStage, we consider lighting to be one of the main components of every home staging project we do. Below are some of the foolproof lighting tricks we use to make each home look more appealing to buyers:
1. Maximize natural lighting
Before you think about buying fancy lighting fixtures, you should first check how well your home uses natural light. Many homebuyers prefer having the option to let natural light in as it makes the room look bigger and more relaxing.
For this, we can use light-colored curtains, low furniture that doesn’t block windows, and reflective items to let natural light throughout the house.
Overall, homes facing the east will have more natural light in the morning while those facing west will get more natural light later in the day. We also factor these in when placing light fixtures all over your home.
2. Know your color temperature
Next, we also tell our clients about choosing the right color temperature when light staging home. Color temperatures are measured in Kelvin (K) – the higher the number, the cooler and brighter it will be.
Here’s what it usually means for your home:
- 2700K to 3000K – This light temperature has a warm and cozy glow, perfect for living rooms and bedrooms. It sets a calming and relaxing mood, which gives a home-like feel.
- 3500K to 4100K – This is slightly cooler and has a soft white color, which is perfect for task lights around the kitchen or home office. It can also be a good choice for ambient lighting throughout your house.
- 5000K – We don’t really use ultra-high Kelvin lighting as it gives a clinical feel, which means that your home may feel like a hospital ward because it’s too bright. Usually, we use 5000K lights on commercial spaces and rarely on residential settings.
If you’re unsure what color temperature suits each room of your house, you can call our team for professional home staging in Los Angeles. We’ll do an onsite inspection and provide you with lighting recommendations that best suit your property!
3. Stay neutral
As with the choice of colors for your walls and furniture, it’s important to remain neutral when it comes to lighting colors. A huge number of buyers will not appreciate a very bold lighting.
For example, you should steer clear of harsh white lights as it makes the space feel too cold. Meanwhile, you should also avoid very cool blue light as this doesn’t make your home feel cozy.
Lastly, be careful with colored bulbs, especially those with unique colors like blue, green, or red. These lighting colors rarely appeal to a wide range of buyers and could be a make-or-break factor in selling your home.
4. Get bright accessories
Aside from lighting fixtures, you should also take advantage of bright accessories. Here are some that we always have in our toolkit whenever we’re staging a home:
- Mirrors. Our team loves mirrors in various shapes and sizes! It’s a very versatile accessory that can make your home appear larger and brighter when placed correctly.
- Area rugs. We also recommend bright area rugs to create a focal point in a room and to make it look brighter. You can also get a patterned rug with a bright color if you want to add more character to each room.
- Light-colored pillows. You can also add cream, pastel, or white-colored pillows into the mix to make couches or chairs look brighter.
- Artwork pieces. Aside from hanging mirrors on your walls, we also use bright artwork to add a touch of vibrance to a room. This will help draw the eyes of your potential buyers while making a boring wall more interesting at the same time.
- Lamps and shades. You can also get table lamps and floor lamps to diffuse the light in certain areas of your house. This will let you create a more inviting atmosphere instead of flooding every room with extremely bright overhead lights.
5. Switch to LED light bulbs
If you still have old and outdated lights on your home, it’s time to switch to LED bulbs. LED lighting is more energy-efficient and available in various color temperatures – even dimmable ones!
Here are some LED lighting ideas for a home that our stagers recommend when working on a project:
- Recessed lighting. You can get recessed lighting on the ceiling to create a warm and less intrusive illumination.
- Under-cabinet lighting. This is a big hit for kitchens and countertops that serves both as a task and accent lighting at the same time.
- Smart LED bulbs. You can also get smart bulbs that can be dimmed or programmed based on the time of the day. Many potential buyers would love this addition, especially in bedrooms and living spaces.
There are many LED lighting options you can explore when staging your home. If you want more LED home lighting ideas and tips, feel free to contact our house staging team. We can provide lighting and full staging on your property anywhere in Los Angeles and Greater LA!
6. Layer your lighting
Layering in lighting means using multiple types of lighting with varying intensity, colors, and sizes. Our home stagers do this to set the right atmosphere in each room of a house.
Instead of having a single, bright light to illuminate a room, we can transform the space by layering the following lighting features:
- Ambient lighting. Ambient lighting is the main light source in a room, which can be recessed lights, chandeliers, or general lighting. We make sure that your ambient lighting is evenly illuminating the room.
- Task lighting. We also pair ambient lighting with task lighting, or those that are meant for specific activities. For example, we add table lamps for reduced eye strain, under-cabinet lights for cooking, and floor lamps for reading.
- Accent lighting. To highlight specific features of your home, we also add accent lighting. This includes small lighting fixtures for your plants, artwork, walls, and more.
7. Don’t forget about outdoor lighting
Last but not the least among our home staging lighting tips is outdoor lighting. While you’ll be doing most showings and open houses during the day, it still pays off to work on your property’s outdoor lighting for added market appeal.
You can actually take photos of the property’s nighttime exterior and add it on your online listing. It will enhance your home’s curb appeal and even attract more inquiries.
Aside from that, outdoor lighting is a great way to improve the safety and security of your property. It’s both a practical and aesthetic choice that we highly recommend.
Let HolmeStage make your property shine brighter in the market!
Do you have a listing that’s been in the market for months? Or are you planning to sell your home soon? HolmeStage can make it shine brighter in the property market with our expert home staging services!
We have a team of interior designers, stagers, movers, and more who will transform your property into a buyer’s magnet. From furniture selection to lighting and decoration, we are the home stager to call in Los Angeles and Greater LA area.
If you want to know more about home staging solutions, feel free to contact us today! We’ll give you a free, no-obligation quote for any home type!
