Dear Fiona: what do interior designers have against overhead lighting?

And now – plot twist – I’m going to come back to overhead lighting because, as you spotted, Nicky Haslam has indeed got them in his house, including a rather extraordinary chandelier that he fashioned out of a cake tin, a plant support and a tin star with pods of an Indian oak-apple tree painted green. Then – and let’s take this back to me for a moment – while my rampant overhead light removal didn’t cause much of an issue once I’d unpacked the lamps, aka the ambient lighting, there are certain situations that are less lamp-friendly – I’ve been bathing in near darkness for a year and a half now. The thing is that “a central light can be very useful,” says Nina, thereby identifying them as task lighting, at least in some situations. She has ceiling lights – and indeed spotlights (these can be task, ambient or decorative, depending on what they’re lighting) – in her house, and the overall beauty of that house proves that they can be well employed, and that like so many things in design and decoration, it’s about execution. I do wonder if the reason so many designers discourage their use is to save us from ourselves.

So in that spirit, let’s lay down some rules of use. First, to reiterate what I wrote above, overhead lighting is best as part of a larger scheme. “When we do use overhead or recessed lights, we use them sparingly in addition to low level lights,” says Sarah, adding that she’ll often put a spotlight “in each corner of the room, or we’ll use directional spots that can be used above vanity units to discreetly light art.” And, she says, she installs them with dimmers (I’m repeating myself again, but that’s because the dimmer thing really is vital). Location matters, and can be particularly important in a dining room; few things look more jarringly idiotic than a central light paired with a non-central table. Height matters in a dining room too, and type of table; if it’s a long slim table, it possibly needs a pendant light that will reflect that, or more than one pendant. And scale matters everywhere.

Basically, “deciding on whether they’ll complement an interior is the first step in deciding whether they will be useful and enhance an interior,” says Juliette Byrne. Nina reminds us that chandeliers and overhead lighting don’t have to be old-fashioned (there’s rather a good round-up here, and none could have that description levied at them) and Juliette reveals how, when employing a more traditional crystal or glass chandelier, she adds mini spotlights just above the pendant which shine through the crystals “giving a wonderfully subtle dramatic effect.” Speaking of subtle, if you’re using overhead lighting as ambient lighting more than task lighting it can be made more beautiful by diffusing it, either by using opaque or what is called ‘opal’ glass (see Beata Heuman’s Dodo Egg Light; you can find spotlights that are made up with it, too) or by way of fabric, alabaster, or what are called dish light chandeliers. Finally, if you’re putting a pendant light into your bedroom, Nina says that “you must put a baffle underneath it, otherwise you lie in bed looking at a naked lightbulb and that’s very uncomfortable.” (A baffle also lessens the harshness of a light source, as well as hiding the lightbulb.)