There are some people who enjoy very simple lighting with a few easy curved lines. Then there are those of us who prefer detailed, intricate geometric designs. If you fall into the latter category (or are just looking for something truly distinct in lighting) then you absolutely have to check out the Schonbek Geometrix line of lights. Covered in gorgeous Swarovski crystals, these high-tech light fixtures decorate the home much like great jewelry decorates the body.
More than just great lines
The most outstanding immediate feature of the Geometrix lights is the cool geometric lines and patterns that make up the designs. This isn’t just about triangles and rectangles. You’ll find spirals, pyramids, pentahedrons, spheres and more.
However, it’s not just the great geometric patterns that make this line of lights so amazing. There are many neat high-tech design features including:
- Distinct pairing of lighting with STRASS Swarovski crystals, an effect that actually change the way that the light interacts with the space in the home
- Combination of halogen, xenon and LED lighting
- Lights with colors that put on light shows in your home
- Chandelier models that can be washed in your dishwasher!
Top Geometrix by Schonbek products
Let’s take a closer look at some of the leading products in this amazing line:
- Compact DaVinci LED Chandelier. The DaVinci chandeliers are all pretty impressive. They’re decorated with an abundance of luminescent Swarovski crystals. They range in diameter from ten inches to two feet. And yet, these massive balls of incredible light can be taken apart and washed safely in the dishwasher. The LED chandelier in this line takes it to a whole new level. It uses energy-efficient LED lighting in 10, 12 and 15-inch chandeliers that can be hung individually or grouped together for a neat constellation effect. The LED lights can be programmed to show off different colors. Great for parties and creating different moods in the home! And yes, it’s still dishwasher safe.
What could be better than a beautiful chandelier? How about a beautiful chandelier that is designed specifically to benefit a great cause? Crystorama, a manufacturer of amazing lighting products, really wowed customers when they created a terrific light fixture specifically to benefit the families of children with cancer.
About Crystorama
When Crystorama was founded in Brooklyn in the 1950’s, the main function of the company was the import of stunning crystal chandeliers from exotic destinations. Over the years, Crystorama has grown to source the best crystals from around the world, which are then used to create their unique lighting products. Their goal is to create interior decorative lighting that exceeds industry “standards for innovative styles, value, service, and valued relationships”.
About Crystorama Products
Crystorama describes its own products as “tomorrow’s antiques”, a term that really fits what they create. The elaborate chandeliers from this company are made using traditional designs, antique molds and specialized craftsmanship. The result is that there is a traditional, vintage look to Crystorama’s chandeliers. The high-quality lights are certainly suitable to modern spaces but they bring in that mysterious element from the past.
How Crystorama is Helping the Embrace Kids Foundation
Crystorama teamed up with Swarovski crystal to create a brand new chandelier. The fixture is part of their Brentwood line of products. The popular product is a gorgeous chandelier that can improve the interior design of many different types of spaces. How does this help kids with cancer? Each time that someone purchases this charity chandelier design, a portion of the proceeds goes to the Embrace Kids Foundation.
How do you know which lighting is the right lighting to choose for your home? Wouldn’t it be great if you could get personalized product recommendations from professionals in the industry? Now that’s possible in a very easy way. Simply take advantage of the personal lighting shopper feature that is available here on our site.
Benefits of the Personal Shopper Feature
You can use our site’s personal shopper feature to obtain the following benefits:
- Get personalized recommendations for lighting products from a certified American Lighting Association consultant.
- Easily sort through the tens of thousands of products on our site to find the ones that are just right for you.
- Find the lighting fixtures that are within your price range.
- Ask questions about your lighting options so that you can choose the right fixtures for your home.
How to Use The Personal Shopper Feature
Our site’s personal lighting shopper feature makes it super simple for you to find the right lighting in seven easy steps. Simply go to the personal shopper page and do these things:
To get the best lighting effect in any room, you need to have multiple light fixtures. More importantly, you need to have the right amount of different types of light fixtures. But how do you know which types of fixtures you need? The key is to understand your lighting options and the way they are each incorporated into the room.
Three Primary Types of Light Fixtures
There are generally three types of light fixtures that you should have in each major room of the house:
1. Task lighting. As the name suggests, this type of lighting refers to the lights that are going to be used for different tasks in the home. For example, you may have a reading lamp in the bedroom or office that serves as the light for your reading tasks.
2. Accent lighting. Accent lighting is similar to task lighting in that it lights a specific area. However, the purpose is not functional (as with task lighting) but instead is decorative. Accent lighting directs your attention to key items in the room that you want to show off. For example, you may use accent lighting to highlight your favorite piece of artwork hanging on the wall.
3. Ambient lighting. Ambient lighting is different from the other two types of lighting in that it is designed to light the whole room. This is typically achieved by using an overhead hanging light.
The Correct Order for Selecting Your Light Fixtures
The biggest mistake that people make when choosing a room’s light fixtures is that they choose the ambient lighting first. The thinking here is that you want to take care of the biggest space first and then add to it. However, this thinking is backwards. Choosing your light fixtures this way typically ends up creating harsher light than what you want in your home. The correct order for choosing your light fixtures is:
One of the most wonderful things about summertime is that the sunlight stays out longer for us to enjoy it. That’s one of the reasons that summer barbecues are so popular. You can start dinner outside in the evening and still have plenty of time left to enjoy it before the sun goes down. If your barbecue is a good one, though, the party will still be going as the fireflies begin to come out. You don’t want to have to end a great barbecue just because the hour is getting late. That’s why it’s important to make sure that you have good outdoor lighting for summer.
The first thing that you will want to do is to consider updating your outdoor lighting to suit both the mood of a barbecue and the style of your home. Some great summer options for updating outdoor lighting include:
- Outdoor hanging lanterns. These lanterns will beautifully light up your outdoor seating area all year long. They add a gorgeous glow that enhances the spirited mood of your barbecue.
- Pathway lights. You don’t want the latecomers to the barbecue to trip over themselves when they arrive. You also don’t want to shock them with your usual bright outdoor lights. Add some modern, fashionable pathway lights to the arrival area for your guests.
- Deck lights. If you have an outdoor deck for your summer barbecue then small LED deck lights are a must-have. They provide an energy-efficient way to keep the area safely lit without making it too bright for you to enjoy.
In addition to these more permanent changes, you will want to get some temporary outdoor lighting just for your summer barbecues. Top choices for temporary lighting include:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently announced that there will be a new labeling system for all light bulbs that will start appearing on packaging in approximately one year. This new system is designed to make it simpler for consumers to understand the different types of light bulb options that are available to them. This is terrific since we are seeing an increasingly broad range of different lights with their own benefits and drawbacks. However, you do have to be able to understand what you’re reading on the labels or the information won’t be of much use to you. This guide should help you to get a solid grasp on that important information.
Basics About the New Labeling
The new labeling will help you to better understand the options that you have for buying light bulbs. The labeling will appear on traditional incandescent light bulbs, compact fluorescent light bulbs and the increasingly popular LED light bulbs. These bulbs all have their pros and cons; being able to read the labels accurately will allow you to choose the right bulbs for each of the different light fixtures in your home. The new labeling will include front-of-package labeling with information about brightness and cost of the bulbs as well as in-depth back-of-package labeling (described below).
Why It Matters That You Choose the Right Light Bulbs
If you select the best light bulb for each of your home lighting needs then you can achieve the following benefits:
- Save money. Cheaper light bulbs are appropriate in some places in the home. Longer-lasting light bulbs that save more money over time are appropriate in other places. Choosing the best bulb for each fixture allows you to save the most money on your lighting.
- Save energy. Selecting the most energy-efficient light bulbs for your home will allow you to conserve energy. This green action can further save you money on your electricity bills.
- Obtain ideal lighting. The right light bulbs will provide high-quality lighting for your home, making it more comfortable and more aesthetically pleasing.
Have you ever seen photos of celebrities in their homes? They always look stunning, don’t they? Of course, some of this has to do with their high-quality photographers, stylists and photo editing experts. But there’s often something more that helps famous people look great in their own houses. That something more is the lighting of the space.
The lighting in a room can make or break how well you look. Great lighting is flattering for the skin, sets the right mood and makes you look like you constantly have a casual glow as you go about your daily business. You don’t have to be a celebrity with an array of interior designers at your disposal to choose home lighting that flatters you. In fact, you merely need to follow a few basic rules to get the most flattering light for your home.
Rule #1: Avoid harsh overhead lighting.
The number one rule for making sure that the light in your home is flattering at all times is to avoid having harsh overhead lighting. You can make terrific statements with bold chandeliers and extravagant hanging pendant lights. However, it is only the fixtures that should be bold; the light coming from them should be soft. Use low-watt bulbs and dimmer switches to reduce the impact of this type of light.
Rule #2: Combine natural lighting and soft lighting with great light fixtures.
Secondly, you want to make sure that you have different types of soft light coming in to your home at all times. During the day this can be achieved by allowing natural light to filter in through transparent curtains. At night you can use the glow from a fireplace or candles to enhance the light that comes from your light fixtures. These natural and flickering light options help to set a great mood for your space while flattering your natural features.
Do you want to make a simple change to your home then will have a huge impact on it in multiple ways? Think ceiling fans. Ceiling fans are beautiful lighting options that serve the function of moving air throughout your homes. The right ceiling fan can have a stunning effect on the décor of your home. Perhaps more importantly, it can save you money on your energy bills regardless of what the weather might be outside.
Most of us use our ceiling fans only in the warmest months of the year. They are certainly ideal at this time. Summer heat urges us to open our windows and let in that bit of breeze. Ceiling fans help to move that breeze around our homes so that we can cool off with fresh air even in the stickiest of months. In comparison to air conditioning and other home cooling options, this is a very low-cost way to keep cool during the summer months. Plus it saves energy and we all like being green!
Ceiling fans are just energy-saving devices in the summer months, however. They are actually useful in the winter as well. They circulate heat in the home during the warmer months of the year. As we all know, heat rises. You don’t want your heat to stay trapped near the ceiling because then you’ll have to keep utilizing more energy to feel warm inside the house. A good ceiling fan will send that warm air throughout the house, keeping your energy costs low.
The best ceiling fans have built-in lighting that will facilitate even more energy savings in the home. You want to choose a ceiling fan that can be turned on separately from the lights. This way you can have the lights, the fan or both on as needed. A ceiling fan that has dimmable lights allows you to choose the least energy-wasting light level that you need at any given time. Likewise, a ceiling fan that has multiple fan settings will allow you to limit energy use even when the fan is active. And a ceiling fan that uses SFL bulbs or LED bulbs will provide you with ongoing energy savings throughout the year.
If you stay on top of the latest trends in lighting then you have already noticed that drum shade fixtures are experiencing a huge revival of late. These fixtures are popular due in large part to the fact that they work with nearly any style of decor. They are also popular because there are so many different designs within the same simple shape. And people like drum shade fixtures because their widespread availability makes it possible to get a style that you like at a price that you can afford.
The fact that drum shade fixtures work with basically any type of decor is probably the single biggest reason that they have become so popular. The drum shade chandelier or pendant light is a simple round shape. It is possible to get fixtures with variations on the basic design. However, at its core, this is a circular shade that can be set against any type of background. Perhaps you have an edgy modern home; the drum shade can soften the rougher edges while maintaining your modern style. Or maybe you have a classic sense of style; the drum shade will honor that by complementing your furnishings in an unobtrusive way.
As drum shade fixtures have become more and more popular, so many new designs for them have come into the market. You can find drum shade pendants in nearly every size. They are made from many different types of materials. If there is a color that you want to add to your room, there’s a drum shade out there that will work for you to add it. You can select a series of medium-sized drum shades in boldly patterned prints or a large drum shade chandelier with elegant crystals hanging from it.
Some LED lights have been available since the 1960’s but they’re only just starting to become truly popular for residential lighting. Perhaps that’s because the recession has forced people to look at ways of saving money all throughout the home. There are at least 10 ways that LED lights save you money compared with incandescent bulbs or even compact fluorescent bulbs.
1. Your energy bills are lower. LED lights are super energy-efficient. They use approximately 90% less energy than incandescent light bulbs. They also use less energy than CFL bulbs. They reduce home electricity costs immediately and can save you a large sum of money over time.
2. LED lights don’t need to be replaced very often. These bulbs can last about ten years before you need to buy new ones. Although more expensive initially, they are lower-cost in the long run since they are long lasting.
3. LED lights are usually under warranty. They’re covered for 3-5 years. Your regular light bulbs don’t have a warranty.
4. Replacement due to damage is rare. These lights are rugged so it’s tough to damage them. They are great for areas of the home, such as the basement, where there are frequent thermal and vibrational shocks that can ruin other lighting over time.
5. They offer the best one-direction lighting. This means you need fewer bulbs in many areas of the home. This also means that they are the most efficient bulbs for recessed downlights, which are used to create ambient lighting in areas light the bathroom and kitchen. Multi-directional lights end up wasting more than half of their energy inside of these fixtures whereas LED lights are very efficient here.
