Are you trying to market dark units?
The right lighting can improve apartments, and something as simple as inexpensive track lighting can make a huge difference. The soft light from indirect lighting fixtures can make apartments feel larger, homier, and more relaxing. If your units aren’t renting as fast as you’d like, poor lighting may be the reason your sales are suffering. Dark apartments seem smaller and more cramped. Permanent light fixtures can significantly affect apartment appeal and help you bring in more renters. Here’s how to make a dark room brighter and more enticing to potential renters.
What is Indirect Lighting?
The amount of light that fills a room impacts the way it feels to inhabitants. A bright room filled with diffused lighting is uplifting and comforting. Conversely, dark rooms can feel stifling and depressing.
Indirect light gives the illusion of uplifting, airy spaciousness, even if windows are shaded. Light is diffused and spread throughout the room for soft, shadowless illumination. Diffused illumination is relaxing and easy on the eyes, unlike the bright spots, glare, and shadows cast by direct lighting.
Indirect lighting uses light fixtures to direct the light upward onto the ceiling and upper walls, where the light reflects and spreads a glow evenly in the room, mimicking ambient natural light. The light source is often hidden or recessed.
8 Kinds of Indirect Lighting & How to Maximize It
1. Recessed Lighting
As the name suggests, recessed lighting is set back in the walls or ceiling. With the wiring and sockets hidden, the only part of the fixture visible is the bulb itself, usually surrounded by a metal or decorative ring. Use frosted bulbs for softer, more diffused light to avoid a harsh spotlight effect.
2. Wall Sconces
Most wall sconces have shades that point upward. As a result, the light spreads against the wall and bounces off the ceiling, creating a softly diffused glow. Wall sconces typically fit close to the wall, and their low profile makes them the perfect indirect lighting fixtures to brighten up dark corners and long corridors. Wall sconces are available in various styles and shapes to enhance any decor.
3. Chandeliers
While the word evokes grand entry halls, most chandeliers are lights with many bulbs that hang from the ceiling. They can be fancy and ornate or simple and functional. In apartments, chandeliers are most common in dining rooms and areas with particularly high ceilings. Creating an indirect lighting effect depends on the type of shades you choose. Shades that direct the light upward to reflect off the ceiling fill the room with soft light.
4. Pendant Lighting
Pendants are trendy and have plenty of options to fit any decor. Instead of traditional recessed or flush overhead light fixtures, pendant lighting is hung from the ceiling by rods, cables, or chains. Well-designed lighting systems match the style of pendant lighting with other built-in light features. Pendants add a rich designer look to even a tiny, dark apartment.
You’ll often see pendant or mini-pendant lights hanging above a bar, kitchen island, banquet seating area, or long dining table. They are small, decorative lights that provide direct lighting in strategic places. Pendant lights may hang as separate units, or a single long shade may surround several hanging lights.
Drum pendant lighting more closely resembles a chandelier than a mini-pendant. A round, drum-like shade surrounds and diffuses several lights to light a wide area. To create indirect pendant lighting, choose shades pointing toward the ceiling to illuminate an entire room.
5. Under-Cabinet Lighting
With cabinets casting shade on the countertops, kitchens naturally have dark space, making the whole kitchen dim and cramped. However, recessed lighting mounted under the cabinets brightens the workspace and lights up the kitchen. Fluorescent lights are typically used for under-cabinet lighting.
6. Hidden Accent Lighting
Light strips mounted behind cabinets or decorative elements are the latest lighting system trend. Backlighting can be hidden under baseboards, panels, crown molding, or any decorative feature set against the wall for a dramatic modern design to brighten a dark room. LED strips are often used to achieve a bright but subtle glow. This indirect lighting idea hides the source of the light and allows the light to spill out from behind a design or architectural feature.
7. Architectural Lighting
The ceiling offers terrific opportunities to brighten a dark room without losing floor space. False ceilings with hidden indirect lighting fixtures are popular with interior designers because they create a great deal of subtle light to brighten any dark apartment beautifully.
One impressive designer technique is recessing lighting within a textured accent wall. Accent walls add a stunning contemporary look to spice up a living room, bedroom, or entryway.
If your apartments have existing niches or recesses in the wall or ceiling designs, strip lights will take them from interesting features to functional, elegant selling points.
8. Ambient Light
If you have a window, you have at least a little ambient lighting. Your window treatments can make a huge difference. Bring outside light in and warm up the color temperature by installing wide blinds or light sheers to let in plenty of natural light without compromising tenant privacy.
A large mirror mounted on the wall opposite the windows will amplify the light and make the room seem bigger. Strategically placed mirrors are an attractive selling point and reflect every light source to make the room feel brighter, and the space feel bigger, even in small, dark rooms.
Choose light color schemes for walls and flooring. For example, white-painted walls and light wood floors reflect light, making rooms seem airy, clean, and more expansive.
A lighting system that incorporates indirect lighting makes any dark room look light, bright, and appealing to prospective local tenants. Excellent photos will help you attract out-of-state renters as well. Well-lit rooms will help you sign more rental contracts and also help keep renters happy and comfortable in their homes.
