Every room has light, or we couldn’t use it. Beyond that, most rooms have more than one layer of lighting. Why? Because we need and enjoy different kinds of lighting when we’re doing different things. So, to give ourselves that flexibility, we design, build in, and set up the lighting in our rooms to give us that. The different layers give us general, ambient, task, mood and accent lighting that we can add, subtract, mix and control to give us the lighting we like best for each activity we do in that space.

Professional lighting designers developed the term “layers” to include the different types of lighting that are installed and used in each room. It’s a handy way to think about them, and gives them a critical way to see the different needs that each space has.

That same critical thinking is something each of us can do, and it can help you determine what a room might be missing, or have too much of, or might suit you better if it were done differently.

General Lighting

General lighting is the first, or base, layer of light that we put in a room. It is most often done with one or more ceiling fixtures. Those can be anything from recessed lights to flush mounted fixtures to an elegant chandelier. In some rooms, though, we don’t have an overhead fixture. Instead, we add the general lighting with a collection of floor lamps and table lamps. In either case, this is typically lighting that can be turned on with a switch next to the door where you enter the room.

Ambient Lighting

Ambient lighting can be thought of in two ways.

One is the natural lighting that comes in through the windows. That doesn’t mean much when the sun isn’t out, though, so it is more useful to take the term “ambient lighting” to include both that natural light and the general lighting. That is, it’s all of the light that’s in the room before we start to add the specialized lighting.

Task Lighting

We usually think of task lighting as lighting on a desktop, a workbench or our kitchen counter—a surface we use to do a task on. The fact is, though, that we do tasks in every room, and we often add lighting to help us see that work. The lamp beside your bed or your favorite chair is task lighting if you use it when you’re reading or sewing there. And when we add that lighting, we’ve added another layer of lighting to that room. When it’s on, it adds more light to the general lighting, and helps to fill in the room.

Area Lighting

We often like to have some lighting that only lights part of a room. This is area lighting. It lights that space, it adds another layer to the total, and it can be used to fill out the room. When it’s added in, it can help make the room feel larger.