Which light colour for which room? Warm white, neutral or daylight

Almost everyone chooses a lamp on looks and only notices the light colour once it is hanging. Yet that one number, the kelvin value, decides whether a room feels warm in the evening or like a waiting room.

What kelvin means

Kelvin indicates the colour of the light, not its strength. The lower the number, the yellower and warmer; the higher, the whiter and cooler.

• 2200 K: candlelight. Atmospheric, but too little to read by.
• 2700 K: warm white. The classic incandescent colour. Living room, bedroom, dining table.
• 3000 K: warm white, slightly fresher. Kitchen, bathroom, hall.
• 4000 K: neutral white. Workspace, garage, office.
• 6500 K: daylight. Bluish and harsh. Rarely pleasant in a home.

Which colour for each room?

Living room and bedroom: 2700 K. This is where you unwind, and warm light supports that feeling. Combine it with a dimmer and you can literally let the evening wind down.

Dining table: 2700 K. Warm light makes skin and food look better. Above a dining table that is not a detail but half the effect. Cool light makes dishes look grey.

Kitchen: 3000 K above the worktop, where you chop and read what is on a packet. If the kitchen shares a room with the dining table, stay at 2700 K and add extra spots under the cabinets.

Bathroom: 3000 K, and a little brighter at the mirror. Do not go above 4000 K unless you really want to shave or do your make-up there.

Hall and stairwell: 3000 K. Fresh enough to be clear, warm enough to feel welcoming.

Study or garage: 4000 K and up. That is light to work by, not to live by.

The biggest mistake: mixing colours

What makes a home look messy is not the wrong colour, but different colours mixed together. A 2700 K lamp next to a 4000 K spot stands out immediately, even to people who do not know what they are looking at: one half of the room looks yellow, the other blue.

Choose one value per open space and stick to it. Take into account the lights already in the ceiling too.

Look at colour rendering as well

Besides kelvin there is the colour rendering index, abbreviated as CRI or Ra. It tells you how true to life colours look under the light. Below 80, red and warm tones look dull: your sofa, your wood, your food. Choose 90 or higher if you care about how your interior looks.

Colour and quantity go together

Warm light looks softer and therefore quickly seems less bright. If you choose 2700 K, allow slightly more lumen than you would calculate on paper. How much that is per room, you can read in how many lumens you need per room.

Why we supply 2700 to 3000 K as standard

All our fittings are supplied complete with light source, in warm white of 2700 to 3000 kelvin, and are smoothly dimmable. So you do not have to find out yourself which bulb goes in, and you do not risk ending up at home with the wrong colour.

Seeing is believing

Colour temperature is almost impossible to judge from a photo, because every screen displays it differently. In our showroom in Arnhem the lamps are lit, so you can see the difference between 2700 and 3000 kelvin with your own eyes before you choose.

Lighting for the living room · Lighting for the bedroom · Lighting above the dining table

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