ᐅ Lighting Design for New Construction – Online Lighting Consultation

Hello everyone,

In a few weeks, we will start building our single-family home, and we are currently deep into planning the lighting.
We have gathered inspiration from some friends who have built homes in recent years—some had professional lighting plans created, while others planned together with their electrician or on their own. We also tried an online lighting consultation from a provider, but we weren’t really satisfied with that plan. For example, the spots in the kitchen were only placed behind the countertop, which would cause shadows everywhere.

Attached you will find our current plan, and we would appreciate any tips or comments you might have.
The blue dots represent recessed ceiling spotlights. The pink dots indicate ceiling outlets for ceiling or pendant lights. The green dots are wall lights, and the yellow strips show LED strips. The LED strip in the living area is intended to be positioned at the transition from wall to ceiling. The LED strip in the lower part of the bathroom is meant as a decorative element running through the middle of the wall. The LED strips in the shower at the upper bathroom area are planned to run vertically from ceiling to floor to illuminate the shower (we saw this at friends’ houses, and it creates a nice lighting effect in the shower).

What do you think of the layout? Too much? Too little?

Best regards,
Tina-89

I just took a quick look. Without claiming to be comprehensive, here are my thoughts:

Hallway: I think there are too many spotlights, but it depends on the type.

Garage: no lighting installed.

Kitchen: too many, but see above.

Living room: possibly one too few (are wall lights planned?).

Bathroom: too many; there is a thread somewhere by @Altai about surgery room–style lighting in bathrooms.

Child 1’s room: the light at the workspace comes from the left.

Otherwise, it’s like with tiles—you have to see it in person, and there are at least 50 opinions.

Overall, there are far too many recessed lights. This most likely makes it unnecessarily expensive, as for example concrete mounting boxes are required, among other things.

The open-plan kitchen, dining, and living area then has too little light... with clip-on switches, I can already see the switch batteries on the wall.

Take a look around the other lighting design threads here; the most recent one even mentions a useful planning tool for simulation. Many lighting designers do little more than draw lamp shopping lists onto the floor plan. That’s nice and may be a small step forward for complete beginners, but it’s not really worth the money.

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Should your dining table really be placed so far down in the bay window? It looks quite cramped. The living room still needs a second ceiling light, unless you’re fine with it being a bit darker. We have a similar hallway as you do upstairs. There, we have a ceiling light positioned centrally between the two walls—the staircase and the bathroom—and an additional wall light that we keep on at night.

I would also have added a door between the walk-in closet and the bedroom.

Best regards,
Sabine

I assume you don’t want to spend too much money on recessed lights and such. Otherwise, get some further advice and raise your concerns during the discussion. These days, it’s usually done via Skype or similar.

In the bathroom, 3 fixtures plus mirror lights are enough. Maybe a fourth one above the shower, but that’s not absolutely necessary.

In the upstairs hallway, you could install 3 recessed lights: 2 parallel to the existing wiring point and one further to the right.

Are the "wall lights" by the stairs actually downlights? Otherwise, there are far too many.

Downstairs bathroom needs 2 fixtures or just one wiring point.

I would skip the LED strip in the living room and instead just install an LED strip behind the TV.

One fixture over the kitchen island is sufficient, plus 4 recessed lights in the kitchen.

For the hallway, I would also use only 4 recessed lights.

Of course, this all depends on the type of light bulbs, distance, usability, etc. We installed inexpensive ones from Amazon, which were also used at my parents’ and a friend’s house. I assume the lighting planner will choose lower wattage spots, and in the end, it will more or less come out the same.

Here are some basic specs:

Wall-mounted recessed lights (downlights) for stairs – 3W, 3000K warm white.
LED recessed spotlights (bathroom) – 3.5W, 6000K cool white.
LED recessed spotlights (hallway, kitchen) – 3.5W, 3000K warm white.

I also recommend ordering 5–6 different spots from Amazon and testing them at home.