How Best to Light up Your Home Office

It looks like everyone will have a home office at some point in the future. Whether it is a converted spare bedroom or just a space for a desk in the kitchen, working from home is becoming more popular for a number of reasons. Some of these are for practically and convenience, as well as a sense of increased productivity. One of the most important issues when working at your desk is the amount of light and how well it fits the room.

Lighting in the room can have a very large influence on productivity and general fatigue and if you don’t like your workspace, it will be hard to become productive. If you have too much light or the light is too dim then you will more than likely straining your eyes causing you to get more tired. Below are some tips to help you with lighting your office.

There are 3 different types of light that are used in offices and areas commercial or domestic:

· Task Lighting – This type of lighting is ideal for reading and writing.

· Accent lighting – More for decoration and to highlight artwork

· Ambient lighting – General lighting for most environments

The idea is to use the light effectively and to try and eliminate such contrasts around the area. For example if the area around your monitor is not well lit, then there will be a contrast between the monitor screen and the light around the monitor. This will create eye strain and cause you to become tired. One way to fix this is to attach a light fixture on the wall behind the monitor which will light up the wall and avoid the contrast between light and darkness while looking at your computer screen.

The décor and office furniture are a major influence on the light you need. For example, if you have white or light coloured furniture, such as a white desk or cream faux leather chair, then you will need low density lighting and fewer lighting options. Equally if you have perhaps a wenge executive desk or a dark oak storage option or the décor and furniture is darker, then you will need a more intense lighting arrangement as dark colours absorb light.

Depending if you are right handed or left handed, your desk lamp should be placed in the appropriate side of the desk. For example if you are right handed, you should place your desk lamp on the left side of your home office desk so that the shadows do not fall across the paper you are working on, and vice versa.