Light up your space with flair

Lighting is about so much more than just illuminating a room. A spectacular chandelier or a row of simple bulb pendants can elevate a space even during the daylight hours.

This has been demonstrated beautifully, in the homes on our House Tours event,taking place on the 6 & 7 June, sponsored by Little Greene, Nespresso and Yves Delorme.

So if you weren't able to attend the House Tours event and see the homes for yourselves, here's the skinny on the lighting..

1 drop it

Artist and Stylist, Liza Giles' home has beautiful high ceilings and ornate plasterwork, so her intention was to 'humanise' the scale of the space and make it feel less imposing. One of the ways she did this in the kitchen was to hang an antique chandelier deliberately low to relax itslofty proportions. The industrial style pendants in the background enhance this and provide a foil to the grandeur of the central light fixture.

(Image credit: James Merrell)

2 dream team

The master bedroom in Claire's home nails two lighting trends on one with some clever sourcing by interior designer, Julia Thompson of Frank Interiors. Julia found the dramatic vintage ceiling light on Vinterior.co. Rather than adding bedside table lamps she's teamed it with low hanging bare bulb pendants by Buster and Punch, which echo the exposed bulbs within the glass globe.

3 barely there

Architect, David Money, originally hung bare bulb lights on cables here, 'But it looked like a forest of wire and you couldn’t see through to the living area,’ he says. Instead he opted for a similar look with a simpler fitting. Bocci's 14 series lighting is similar. ‘The wires of these globe lights are ideal – they hang like a cloud above the table.'

(Image credit: Paul Massey)

4 glass ceiling

In Fleur's place, the dining table is situated in the extension under the glazed roof. At first it appeared that there was nowhere to hang a ceiling light. The answer? To fix a row of pendant bulbs with extra long cables onto the wall and suspend them from hooks on the panels between the glass panes. This way the lights can also be lowered or raised according to the time of day, or the mood the family wish to create.

5 straight up

Interior designer, Harriet Patterson worked with her architect to redesign this staircase in oak. The area beside the stairs, which had previously housed a lift, became a glazed light well, hung with a vertical line of simple bulb pendants, suspended at different heights.

(Image credit: Paul Massey)

See our edit of bulb pendants here.