One of the most important aspects of any home or office remodel or construction is lighting. Interior lighting design is an art all by itself. Light can turn a beautiful room into a space with the ambience of a warehouse or an operating room. It doesn't matter if the project is a private home design or a dental office design. Lighting can enhance or destroy all the efforts of a good interior design plan.

One of the first decisions an interior designer needs to make concerns source lighting. Where does the light come from, how does it fall, and how does it change. The first problem of designing a room is determining what the major source of light will be. If it is a room used primarily during the daylight hours and has adequate windows, then the designer may have a major component influencing the choices of color and even the form of the room. If the room has no windows, or is mostly used at night then a different set of design rules may apply. A room with some windows and both day and night use offers up another set of challenges.

Sunlight has a color hue to it that is different from other light sources. It is blue during the day with warmer tones in the mornings and evenings. In addition, the tone will change with the seasons depending on location. Selecting paint, floor material and furniture can all be enhanced with this knowledge. The blue cast of a midday sun can bring out the blues in the wall. The warm tones of evening and morning can bring out the red hues in paint. Several important questions to ask concerning a room lit primarily by sunlight include the time of day the room is most likely to be used, the nature of the use, the colors of the floor and whether or not there will be supplemental lighting.

A room lit primarily by artificial light has several other factors to consider. Artificial light comes in different color temperature as well. Fluorescent light has a blue green hue, tungsten a yellow orange hue. If the room is lit by fluorescent lights a color should be selected that will best work with the greenish cast. Everyone has been in a room where fluorescent light has turned the walls into unpleasant garish colors. Careful selection of paint color can minimize this effect and help create a room with an almost daylight feel.

Choosing paint color from paint chips is always a challenging prospect. First a small quantity of color may be very different then an entire room painted in the same color. A second factor is the lighting under which the paint chip is being viewed. Many paint departments are located deep inside a store and lit by fluorescent lights. Grab the chip and walk it to the window and look at the color in the sunlight. Next, take the chip home and put it on the wall. Look at it during the day and also at night. Switch the wall the chip is on. Different walls reflect different light sources or the same source in a different way. Knowing the light is half the design battle.