Light up your home this season with indoor and outdoor lights

By Metro Creative Services

Forget spring: winter is the best time of year for home improvement projects. More Americans host guests at their homes during the holidays than any other time of the year, making winter the perfect time to dress up a home to impress guests.

Mark Roush, a lighting designer with Philips Lighting Company, points out that the key to making guests feel at home this winter is by making a house warm, secure and dynamic — elements that can be easily created with light.

“Whether it’s the quality of your light source or the strategic placement of light points in a room, the small details make your guests feel at home,” says Roush. “A well-lighted house lets your friends and family know that you care about their comfort.”

Roush suggests that homeowners consider both the exterior and interior of their home when decorating with light. He offers a number of easy-to-perform, inexpensive lighting tips:

Outdoor

Daylight-saving time is gone so make sure your lights stay on. Nothing screams “disrepair” like a home with burnt-out light bulbs. Use compact fluorescent light bulbs — they last five to seven years — throughout the year to ensure that your lamppost, garage or front door stay lighted during those dark winter months.

Help your guests navigate with a bright walkway. When lighting walkways and driveways, focus the light toward the path. Illuminating the actual surface increases safety and aesthetics. Lantern-style fixtures may be popular, but they put little to no light on the sidewalk itself.

Highlight your landscaping with a floodlight. With the right light, landscaping can look just as stunning in the evening as it does during the day. For a typical tree, place lights to illuminate the canopy from underneath. This creates highlights and texture by lighting through the patches of foliage. Or, create a “moonlight” effect by placing lights high in the tree aimed at the ground.

Indoor

Add luster to Thanksgiving dinner by replacing your chandelier’s dull incandescent bulbs with sparkling halogen flame bulbs. Philips Halogena flame bulbs are cased in faceted glass, which causes the light to refract and reflect off the chandelier. This creates a dazzling sparkle above your dinner table.

Make your kitchen look bigger and brighter. The right light may not make your guests stop crowding one another for a second helping of stuffing, but it will make your kitchen feel larger than it actually is. Install fluorescent bulbs above your kitchen cabinets to bounce warm-colored light off your ceiling, creating an artificial sky that opens the room.

Make your New Year’s Eve party shine. In social situations, people tend to gather in areas that have one of two elements: food and light. Create pockets of light throughout the party area to ensure that your guests keep moving and mingling.

Showcase your prized pieces of art. The crisp white light of a halogen bulb brings out the color and texture of your favorite artwork. Create a visual focus by aiming an adjustable downlight or track light equipped with a halogen spot.

Whether it’s through strategically- placed lighting or something as simple as a bulb upgrade, small lighting details can make all the difference when putting your home on display this winter. A trip to your local Home Depot can help you put these tips into action for the holiday season.