apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

One thing I'm noticing right away in the picture is that both the floor and the window shades are very dark. I agree you need lighting but you might also think about some light-colored rugs and window treatment.

Why don't you tell your guest: "hey! look at my new painting!"

maybe I'm outta the loop...what's wrong with track lighting?

I suffer from a very similiar probably only to add to it, it's my first place and I'm broke! So far my solution has been lots of lamps, which not only add light but quite a nice decor as well.

It's been suggested to me that temporarily, I use those huge stick on lights that turn on when you touch them. Yuck. But now I'm wondering if maybe I could prettify them. Just a thought.

If you're moving eventually, then I wouldn't spend money on lighting that is custom for this space. I would just add a lot more small light focus points, which you can take with you when you eventually move...

Definitely a nice shaded table lamp for your nesting tables.

maybe some small spot lighting on your shelves.

And I agree- light colored window treatment!

What is that dark rectangle at the very back? Oh! those are brown shades over a window? Then yes! by all means replace those shades.

I don't think there's anything wrong with track lighting either.

track lighting is awful if its used as an over head light. if you get track lighting and direct the points to the wall, its not bad at all (think gallery lighting). actually its really great looking.

just make sure you get small track lights. ikea sells some really nice looking options ... you want to add light so people can see your space - you don't want some big monstrous globes on your tracks stealing all the attention!

supplement the tracks with some uplights and table lamps and that should help dramatically. i also second the plea for lighter window and floor treatments. however, i disagree with the person saying you shouldn't invest in your space. if you're not planning on moving anytime soon, why shouldn't you make the space you live in feel wonderful and home like?

good luck! post after pics!!

i agree on avoiding permanent/custom things to a rental...

so maybe for the painting(s) get picture lights that plug in or run on a battery?

what about the arc lamp...so that it hangs over the coffee table area and lights up the living room?

more plug in lighting varieties... since you don't have a ceiling fixture in the living room, it'd be expensive to go the recessed or track route...

btw, i really like your dining room pendant and the tripod lamp!

Hi,
I would suggest minimalist furniture. For instance, one of my favorite sofas is the Puzzle Lounger from Sleek Spaces (http://www.sleekspaces.com/buy/Living_Room/Seating/Sofas/Convertible_Sofas/Puzzle_Lounger_Futon_Sofa). It comes in many colors (we decided on an orange one). Even though many sites list it as a futon, it is miles away from a futon: it's a sleek, modern, simple, and light sleeper sofa. You might also consider getting rid of the heavy armchair (or put it in storage) and replacing it with, well, again something minimalist, less space-intrusive. As for the picture by the bookcase, moving it to the empty wall (the one close to the window) will make it more visible. As far as lighting is concerned, I would put track lights above (or in the vicinity) of the pictures, maybe complemented by a slim torchiere.

If your landlord allows it, why not make the more permanent changes in order to have the home you want?

A lot of times we move into a rental thinking, "I'll just stay here a year until I find the place I REALLY want..." That can turn into several years of living in the "temporary" space. I say make your home into the home you want, especially if you live in an area with insanely expensive housing (like me - in DC, renting the same place for 8 years, and I'd be paying twice as much with a mortgage payment).

Basically, "rental" doesn't equal "temporary." In some markets, it just equals "where you live."

The IKEA cable lights (not track lights) are very effective as well as portable and affordable. Not only will they light up the dark space, the individual lights are opposable, so they can be trained on artwork, tchochkes, etc. However, I am not sure if those decidedly modern lights would match the decidedly traditional decor in this apartment. Also, you need to have some kind of wall or ceiling light rough/housing on which to install the transformer for the cable lights; I don't see any such thing in the photos except for the chandelier over the dining table. So it's a tradeoff- if you are willing to sacrifice the chandelier, you could put up a pretty neat cable light system for the whole space.

Alternatively, some uplight cans in the back corners of the room would do wonders as well. Won't do anything for the artwork though.

i'm in agreement with the others in that you need more lamps of various types, up lights, more direct lighting and of course the standard table lamp. They don't need to be matchy, matchy, but do need to coordinate in some way, say two different lamps, but within the same color family for instance.

I'd also look into art lights, the ones that clip onto the top of your artwork and plug into the wall, there are ones with UV filters in them to help reduce fading out there too.


And one last thing, do not put all your lamps on one side of the room. spread them out from end to end, both sides for a more even light. Also don't forget trying an arch lamp on one corner for something different that perhaps spreads the light around softly through it's shade.

But definately do that and reduce the overall dark tone in the room, especially if you don't get enough light during the day.

We had the same problem with a large, dark piece of art that really needed light in our rental apartment. Didn't want to pay to rewire for new lighting. Bought stick-on track lighting (Valo?) that has a white track and small adjustable angle hallogen lights. Sounds tacky I realize, but is super cheap ($40), does a great job of lighting the painting even at only 3 ft out from the wall, and is so low profile most people don't notice it's there. White color of the track and cord blends right into the ceiling (cord and track are backed with super-duty double-stick tape), and the hallogens are very small and sleek looking. The only problem is hiding the cord as it comes down from the track on the ceiling to the outlet in the wall. We hid it behind a wall bump-out, but you could just as easily hide it behind a tall bookcase. Even comes with a dimmer switch. And if you hate it, it didn't cost you much to try it.

I agree with the clip on lights over items like your beech storage unit. Placing a light over each vertical segment will warm that up.

I would also put some in cabinet lighting in your white cabinet behind the frosted glass doors. A nice ambient glow would really soften that area.

If you were to put in some track lighting I'd probably place it along the opposite wall from your couch.

Also you seem to have a couple lights already in your room but they look very dim. Could you use a higher wattage lightbulb?

5 sources of light per room.

If getting your landlord's approval isn't important, as you stated, then go for recessed lighting. Check with a lighting contractor for pricing, but also check books on lighting design to see how best to place them. Lighting is tricky, but oh so important, and unfortunately, it seems to be practically ignored in older homes or many rentals.

Try to infuse some lighting into your white glass-front cabinet: Home Depot sells strips of LCD lights that install quite easily and can be plugged into the wall. Ikea also has great, small ambient lighting fixtures for fairly cheap. Buy a few different items, bring them home and place around your apartment, moving them every few days. You'll get an idea of where you'd like more light and just how much you'll need.

Are your ceilings drywall or concrete? I ran into the same problem with a lack of light and I had to have soffits built to contain the lights because it is impossble to drill into concrete and run electrical wiring. Is there any old wiring in the ceiling that you can take advantage of to keep cost and labor to a minimum.
All that said I had mini cans put in to the soffits I had built in my dining room which has no windows and it was not enough. I am in the process of repainting the room in Sherwin-Williams luminious white.
Good Luck.

hi, I'm the husband of the poster - thanks for all of your comments, please keep them coming. I thought I'd provide some info regarding the dark window treatment at the back of the apartment, which is a custom-made dark/wide wooden blinds. Its kind of a long story but we "won" a design consultation at a charity auction from a very well pair of designers (several nyc restaurants to their credit) - they spent a couple hours with us in the apartment and offered some makeover tips. their strongest advice was to

1) get wooden blinds in the darkest shade possible and to
2) stain the floor as dark as possible.

So we did. (at considerable expense.) so i don't know whether to laugh or cry, so i'm doing a little of both - does irony apply here, that almost every post suggests changing both? Anyway, we cant change them. the tripod lamp was $100 in Chinatown and it is a very close copy of the $1000 version the decorators recommended that we buy from De la Spada. In order to lighten things up, we just bought the white shelving from DWR made by Sapporo, which was not exactly cheap but its offers quite a bit of storage space.

If we go with the track lighting (we have some money to spend), do we place it 4 feet from the wall?? Does anyone know whats involved (cost & headache) to install to a junction box so we can put in track lighting where we have no ceiling fixture or electric supply in the ceiling (or wall switch wired for the new lighting)? it seems that we would need to run a conduit up from a baseboard outlet, and put a flush mount switch box on that.

To respond to a previous post, i'm pretty sure the ceiling is concrete - we could run anchor screws into it for flush mounts but probably not do any recessed installations. none of these alternatives are particularly appealing - how would\have you dealt with similar situations? for the clip-on art lighting, how do you conceal the electric cord that hangs down along the wall, behind the picture - or do you not conceal it at all?

Okay. First, I like the black floors and black blinds so I'm in the minority here. But I'm the lighting guy so here goes:

You can definitely use track to create a flexible power source on your ceiling without much work. It will work particularly well given that you can anchor it in your ceilings. Picking the light heads is tricky because you ceiling isn't too high. I would recommend something pretty small for that reason like this one. Keep it simple, like this http://ylighting.com/mod816blacor.html small and in white.

Given how slender the room is, I wouldn't do the tracks 4 feet from the wall, I also wouldn't run them from one end to the other or two in parallel. Put them two feet from the wall and point them sharply down. I would recommend something like one 4 foot length that is used to light the painting (and bounce light onto the table) and one strip above the sofa.

Another option is to snake monorail throughout the room. You can point a couple of monorail heads at the painting and even hang some decorative pendants onto the table. This will help with the linearity problem as well. http://ylighting.com/monorail-lighting.html

In addition, you might want to use a couple of these clustered in a corner. I like the round shapes to offset the linear nature of the room and surfaces: http://www.ylighting.com/ltu-rs-76.html

Finally, you should introduce some color - possibly by replacing the dining room light. You might also want a simple can on top of the bookshelf to light up the ceiling. If you light it up, it won't look so low.

Hope that helps.

JZ (YLighting)

Mama isn't an expert on lighting, distances from wall etc. There are people whose job that is to know.
What mama do know is that Ikea has a nice modern picture light you can install on the picture. And that's all I got. Send "after" pics, pretty please.

I'd use a couple of uplights to reflect light off the ceiling for general lighting. track lighting is definitely the way to go to highlight your picture, and lamps are lovely for reading nooks or small task areas. recessed lighting is extremely difficult to do on your own, and you could potentially cause a lot of damage if you're not familiar with the electrical patterns in the building (think: drilling redrilling fishing with a wire redrilling some more - bleh not worth it)