How to Decorate

Ep. 127: Lighting Basics

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This week, we switched it up to take a deep dive into lighting with Ballard lighting experts Valerie and Roger. They answer all our lighting questions including, how many light sources we actually need, the rules for wattage and color that can help us get the best brightness and not waste money, and why light fixtures are like the jewelry of a home. They also give their personal picks for the type of lighting that works best in a space, share rules for using shades and finding the right lamp height, and common mistakes we make that can make a huge difference in creating a simple yet beautiful mood in a room.

What You’ll Hear on This Episode:

  • Valerie handles the “pretty” part of lighting at Ballard, and Roger hands the technical.
  • How Valerie and Roger work together to make things both as functional and aesthetically pleasing as possible, and what a day in their work life looks like.
  • How we know if a room is under lit, and if there is a thing as too much lighting in a room.
  • The rules of thumb for hanging lights at different levels, and the most important rules of can lights.
  • Why we shouldn’t rely on one fixture such as a chandelier to be our main source of light.
  • The many different ways light bulbs can make or break a room, what exactly wattage is and how we are paying for it, and how to know which LED colors to pick.
  • Why Roger loves incandescent lighting, and how we can use the Kelvin temperature scale on the Ballard website to better understand which type of bulb to pick.
  • What a humming sound inside our bulbs means, and what we can do about it.
  • How to check to see if a light meets your “CBD” needs - Color, Brightness, and Dimmable.
  • Pleated, paper, and printed textures are in, so bring those shades on!
  • How to best match the lamp with the appropriate piece of furniture, and how to know what height and width works best for picking lamps.
  • What makes some lamps more expensive than others, and how to get the right deal when paying for a lamp.
  • If we should or should not put shades and chandeliers, and the rules surrounding it regarding functionality.
  • The true confessions of how often we really clean our ceiling fans.


    • Mentioned In This Episode:

    Ballard Designs Lighting

    YouTube.Com/BallardDesigns

    Ep 122: Tom Scheerer

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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