Decorating or designing a space takes time and thoughtful planning. There are big questions, like where your largest pieces of furniture should go, and creative struggles, like how to shape your gallery wall or where to place your favorite potted plants. But there’s one key to making a cozy home that often goes overlooked: lighting. From lightbulb brands to lamp placement, making sure your space is well-lit sometimes feels more like a science than an art. For the team at MENU, a Scandinavian design and decor studio, it’s a little bit of both.
We recently partnered with MENU at our new home, where we featured their JWDA Table Lamps in our furnished studios. The lamps work wonders in a small space, providing enough light for cozy hangs with friends, or late night work at the kitchen table. Beyond their durable, beautiful products, we also connected with MENU’s mission of fostering community through great design, and were especially inspired by the work they do with global artisans to create best in class furniture and decor.
Today, we’re bringing their expertise to you. We spoke with Riccardo Longo, Lighting Product Developer at MENU, about his top tips for leveraging lighting to create a comfortable home. Read on, and learn more about MENU on their website or Instagram.
What’s the key to creating a warm, cozy feel through lighting?
To create coziness in a space, I always recommend adding white light bulbs to light fixtures or adding a lampshade with warm colors. Additionally, it helps to place lamps in areas throughout the room that won’t shine light directly into anyone’s eyes. Another big plus is to have a dimmer on your light sources, this way, you can always control the amount of light in the room.
How can renters use lighting to make a small space look bigger?
There are so many great ways to use lighting to make your space look bigger! One trick is to spread as much light throughout the room as possible, using wall lights to push light into the corners and widen the space. Both table and floor lamps work wonders to spread light to each of the walls as well and create the illusion of a more open area. Further, to allow as much light as possible, I recommend choosing light colored or clear lampshades and diffusers.
Let’s get specific: is there a certain brand or wattage of light bulb you recommend?
A lightbulb brand I always suggest is Tala! For those warm, cozy lights, you can use a color range of 2500K to 2700K. The watt you need truly depends on the area you’re trying to light up, dimmable bulbs help with this too.
If you could light a room only using one product from MENU, what would it be?
If I could choose only one product from MENU to light a room, I would choose anything from the Hashira family in the raw color as these lights really exude that cozy Nordic feeling. The shades come in a classic cylindrical form, but the black linear design gives them a unique touch. The Hashira family is composed of floor, wall, portable, table and pendant lights, in two different dimensions, making it possible to use them in unique ways in any space.