The four-layer lighting plan I use in every room

Walk into most newly finished homes here and you will find the same thing: a grid of ceiling lights, all on one switch, all the same colour. It is bright, it is efficient, and it makes every room feel identical at every hour of the day. The fix is not more fittings. It is more layers, each on its own circuit.

Layer one: ambient

The general wash that lets you cross a room safely. This is the layer everyone already has, and it should be the dimmest of the four. Wherever the ceiling allows, I aim light at a surface rather than straight down at the floor: a cove, a wall, anything that bounces.

A room lit only from directly above flattens faces and kills the texture of every material you paid for.

Layer two: task

Light where work actually happens. Under the kitchen wall units, beside a reading chair, over a study desk, inside a wardrobe. Task light should be brighter and slightly cooler than ambient, and it must be on its own switch so you are not lighting the entire room to chop onions.

Layer three: accent

The layer that creates depth, and the one almost nobody installs. A narrow beam on a plant or a piece of art, a light grazing down a textured wall. This is the difference between a room that is lit and a room that has been composed. And it is cheap, because the fittings are small and you need very few.

As a rough rule I aim for accent light around three times the ambient level on whatever it is pointed at. Any less and it reads as a mistake rather than a decision.

Layer four: decorative

Table lamps, pendants, wall lights. Fittings you are meant to look at. These do very little actual work in lux terms; their job is to bring the light source down to seated height and give the eye something warm to settle on.

Get the colour temperature right

I specify 2700K almost everywhere in a home and 3000K in kitchens and bathrooms. Mixing colour temperatures within a single sightline is the fastest way to make an expensive scheme look cheap. One cool white bulb among warm ones and the whole room looks wrong without anyone being able to say why.

Put it on scenes

Four layers on four circuits gives you a room that can be four different rooms. Set up three combinations (day, evening, late) and the household will use all three without ever thinking about the wiring underneath.