Cheap and Stylish Lighting Will Transform your Home
I love shopping for light fixtures. Aside from tile, lights are my absolute favourite item to source. What is so great about lighting? These days, unlike a decade ago, you don’t have to spend a fortune to get amazingly beautiful lights, especially if you are willing to shop online.
In this article, we’re going to go over Cheap and Stylish Lighting options that are accessible to everyone when preparing your home for sale.
For most home owners, changing a light is not on the to-do list, especially when working with electricity is involved. Most home owners just accept whatever light fixtures they have, however lights are one of the cheapest and most effective upgrades you can make to your home.
When I do a home decor or home staging consultation, I completely understand this; there are so many other things in life that to take priority over a new dining room light.
However, once you’re ready to sell, it’s a whole new game. When you work with us for our service package, we provide the labour to change out any light in your home. We do this because we know that, aside from painting, upgrading your lights is the most effective method to add a lot of value to your home for relatively little cost. The return of investment is fantastic. This is for 2 reasons:
- For almost every standard builder home built after 1940, there was a serious downgrade in architectural details. Ceilings got lower for decades, crown mouldings, transom windows, framed doorways, wainscoting, marble inlays……anything that would add interest to the room disappeared. In most homes, you’ll find a lot of drywall rooms with 3 1/2 inch baseboards instead. Often, there really is nothing much to look at, and so the best way to give a buyer something to look at is to install a glorious light fixture.
- Even more than design impact, most homes are lacking sufficient lighting to create a positive first impression. A home that feels dark doesn’t impress buyers, and it makes the home feel smaller than it is. As a general rule, when you increase the number of lights and fixtures in the home, you’re creating greater perceived space and value for the buyer. Make those lights good looking, and you’ve hit all the right notes for making buyers fall in love with your home.
Let’s quickly look at the lights I’m constantly asking owners to remove, and which are in almost every home. The reasons are mostly functional, but the style could be improved as well.
- The Spot Light/Track Light/Directional Light
These lights are a great challenge because they provide a strong light in a 1 foot square area, but provide no overall lighting for the whole room. They actually create more shadows, thus making the room feel darker than it even is. This is the opposite of what you want when selling a home. Even if you have pot lights, which is a very nice upgrade, they don’t replace a general light fixture, because pot lights create mood and effect, but cannot illuminate the entire room.
2. The “Boob” Light
A great Canadian designer, Tommy Smythe, coined the phrase ‘boob light’ many years back, and since then, I truly cannot look at these lights the same way. The lights are functional, but are the builder standard. You can find them hanging from millions of ceilings in homes across the country. Many of these lights also have the added disadvantage of yellowed or marbled glass. As a rule, any bowl that distorts the colours of the light, or reduces the actual amount of light emitted from the fixture, is useless for staging a home. The ‘boob light’ makes your lighting situation worse, not better.
3. Builder Basics – we’ve all seen this light 1000 times
The goal of upgrading lighting is to catch the buyers attention, to give them a light that’s elegant, stylish and unique. One that adds to the appeal and architecture of the home. These builder basic lights can’t do this. There are so many gorgeous lights that are only marginally more expensive, and so it’s well worth the extra $50-$100 to get a real showstopper.
Now lets have some fun shopping for some cheap and stylish lighting. Here’s the one trick to keep in mind, you can mix metals. If you have a lot of stainless steel in your home, you can stick with silver metal, or you can add in black metal lighting. If you have a lot of black, in your appliances or tiles, you can stick with black metal, or choose a gold fixture.
Article continues below
Cheap Ceiling Lights that Look Great
If your Home is Traditional:
There are all of the classic styles, but even with being traditional, they are simplified a little; a few less crystals, a few less curves and embellishments. This will ensure your light respects the traditional elegant style yet still feels suited to today’s less pretentious lifestyle.
If your Home is Transitional (not too fancy, not too modern):
Look for pieces that reference traditional style, but their lines have been dramatically simplified. The use of black draws the eye and creates an unexpected layer, and makes the light a focal point of the room. However any metal will work as long as there is some modern element to the light fixture.
If your Home is Industrial/Craftsman/Modern:
The focus is on craftsmanship because of the sheer simplicity of the light. It is graphic. It is edgy. It is well executed design. These lights will make people take a second look because they are not common to every house on the street. And much like a piece of art, you choose the one that stops you dead in your tracks and you know “that’s the one”.
Notice in the examples for all designs, there are never any light bulb “hat” shades; neither fabric nor glass. Those mini-shades date your light and house to make it feel older than necessary. Allow the bulbs to be exposed, and choose frosted bulbs and lower wattage LED’s for a soft glow without the shades.
All of these cheap and stylish lights are excellent options for adding a real sense of style and presence to your home. And as always, we offer design consult services long before you are ready to list your home, because these decisions can’t be made at the last minute. Take a look at our portfolio to see our past work, or ask us a question below. We have a NO hassle policy so feel free to contact us below and get started on the right path with NO pressure.
