20 Resplendent Living Room Lighting Ideas

The go-to fixture for kitchen islands everywhere, a well-designed pendant light has finally made its way out of the kitchen! Open your mind up just a little and your ceiling living room lighting ideas could now include a single gorgeous pendant light (some are very colorful) over an occasional table near your chair-and-a-half, providing all the light of a table lamp with zero table footprint. In this image we see the immensely popular Hinkley Lighting Palma 41925HB pendant light complete with a sublime nod to the pineapple traditionally given by guests as they arrive at your home.

Floor lamps can pull double-duty, depending on your needs. Gorgeously styled floor lamps like the Uttermost Cielo 30071-1 have so much visual appeal that they can be toward the center of the room, commanding attention from all who enter… or they can be set into a (previously) dark corner to provide general ambient lighting for your guests. If your living area lighting ideas include floor lamps as the primary ambient (general) lighting, keep in mind that larger rooms would need multiple lamps… the general rule is one floor lamp for every 100 square feet of living space.

For many of our family room lighting ideas, the first thing that comes to mind is a stunning set of table lamps on the end tables. Quite a few folks stop there at lighting their living rooms… though we heavily suggest layering your lighting (see Idea #1 above). Sure, you can get the perfect amount of light out of your table lamps, but their true value is the amazing décor they add to your living room. Take this Quoizel Lighting Asheville TF1180TVA tiffany lamp as a prime example, the base isn’t just a stick holding up a light, it has been carefully crafted with an artistic flare to compliment the brilliantly inlaid tiffany design of the lamp.

Recessed ceiling lighting should be at the top of just about everyone’s living room ceiling lighting ideas lists. Small in size, when paired with a dimming wall switch, they offer a simple and ridiculously effective way to layer your living room lighting. We suggest using the Generation Lighting 14550S-15 recessed downlight – this versatile fixture can be used with any junction box and has available adapters to allow you to keep your existing 5” or 6” ceiling cans and put a brand new, LED housing on them.

Frequently found enlightening the stairways of the best of houses, decorative wall sconces are the go-to choice when you don’t want anything on the ceiling that could be hazardous. We say they’re the most under-utilized fixtures with the most potential… As shown here, two Progress Lighting Briarwood P710012-020 wall sconces flank a beautiful piece of artwork. Also found above fireplaces or flanking decorative archways, wall sconces add a little bit of light in exactly the right places.

Ever since smart light bulbs became all the rage (starting in 2012), many of our customers have been clamoring for the right smart light solution to fit into their ideas for lighting a living room. For years, we’ve suggested not investing in smart bulbs, but investing in smart switches (Note: if you want different colors from your bulbs and not just various shades of white, you’ll have to use smart bulbs). That’s all changed – now there’s a new, disruptive technology for your chandeliers called the SkyX Smart Plug & Play Lighting Base that is truly unique. You wire in and install an adaptive dock, then attach your chandelier to the smart base and click it into place. You’ll never have to wire up another chandelier again and, more interestingly, you can change out your chandelier in a minute or two anytime you want. Not only Wi-Fi controlled (with smartphone and voice access), but there is an LED ring at the base of the plug that is color-changing to your whims. Imaging swapping out your living room chandelier with a Christmas Tree chandelier as the season arrives and swapping it back to “normal” in January… truly game changing.

Although the highlight of this room is the amazing view, the focal point naturally becomes the amazing Eurofase Lighting Santana 31445-038 chandelier. Look closer at the perimeter of the room, lighting those little alcoves creates a strong lighting base all around the room, bringing out the architectural wonders that the designers have crafted to bring their cool lighting ideas to life. Controlled with a dimming switch or integrated home lighting control system, cove lighting highlights the architectural magic built into your living room.

If your modern living room lighting ideas have to include illumination for your art or displays, that doesn’t mean to forget the central point of the room. Start with a gorgeous chandelier that will augment (rather than detract from) your decorative selections, like the Crystorama Lighting Calypso 275 chandelier. Once you’ve got the center covered, bring your artwork and collections to the forefront by using track lighting to use one fixture to highlight multiple areas, picture lights will make your hanging artwork pop or adjustable lighting to highlight the room’s treasures.

It’s a shock, I know, but sometimes the very best indoor lighting ideas don’t use electricity. Two hundred years ago when you were layering lighting in your living room that meant a roaring fire providing most of the light, with strategically placed candles filling the darker spots. Today, the coziest family room light ideas include both dancing fireplace flames and flickering candlelight. Add to that a central focal point like the Z-Lite Chloe 490P10-3R-OBR clustered pendant light and you’ve got a recipe for a romantic evening.

One of the things we aspire to in all of our living room light fixture ideas is flexibility – we want to be able to turn the lights down low for the latest action flick, and crank ‘em up to 11 when it’s time for the semi-annual cleaning. In these days of “LED” everything, getting the right dimmer switch isn’t as easy as snagging one off the shelf at your local big box store. Incandescent light bulbs (old-school bulbs we grew up with) require a leading-edge dimmer (current is shut off as the AC waveform begins), while most LED bulbs require trailing edge dimmers (current is shut off as the AC waveform ends). Putting the right dimmer on your statement lighting pieces in your living room, like the Maxim Lighting Polaris 28668CLPC shown here allows you to get just the right amount of light whenever you need it.

If your lighting living room ideas lean toward table lamps on end tables or sofa tables, that doesn’t mean they have to be boring. Statement lamps have unusual designs, materials and craftsmanship to create their own visual focal points. The Gloss White glass on the Uttermost Cardoni 27201 table lamp features Golden Bronze hues accented with Brushed Brass details, all on a thick crystal foot. Elevate your living room lighting ideas through lamps of extraordinary detail and quality for a quick living room upgrade.

Bright, flexible and a crowd-pleaser describes not only the gymnasts readying for the 2024 Olympics, but also LED tape lighting! Add LED strip lighting to your list of living room light ideas to enhance architectural details (as they have done here with lighting the shelving unit), the back of an entertainment center, or even long the back side of a hanging picture to create an amazing aura around the piece. Once again this works perfectly with the layered lighting being put down by the Kichler Lighting 43846 LED flush mount lights.

Pro Tip: When installing LED lights, make sure they’re the same color of white. It’s called the Kelvin scale and measures how yellow (low Kelvin number, like 2700) to daylight bright (high Kelvin number, like 6000) the light is that is produced. Match your numbers for a more pleasing effect… it looks weird to have a yellow’ish light next to a white’ish light.

Using a pendant light as a feature in your living room ceiling lights ideas makes sense… but wait, there’s more. Many of the best manufacturers have realized that the pendants are gorgeous, but they need a more “wow!” centerpiece so they tasked their artisans to create pendant clusters that combine multiple pendants in one hanging masterpiece. In this image, the homeowner dipped into their living room light ideas list and selected the Z-Lite 478-7BRZ-OBR 7-light vertical pendant cluster to create a dramatic modern centerpiece for their family room.

If you’re lucky enough to have built-ins (that would be built-in shelving) that is exposed, consider running LED tape lights to backlight your treasured collectables. Whether you’ve got all of your first edition 19th century authors greatest works collected there, or your latest acquisition of Funko Pop! Bobbleheads, your collection deserves to be seen in its best light. Remember that backlighting isn’t enough, add front lighting from the ceiling with the Kichler Lighting 43846 LED flush mount lights to provide a user-selectable color of white (2700, 3000 or 4000 Kelvin).

These days, you can put color-changing LED lighting just about anywhere. There are kits to add color-changing LEDs behind your television (and media center) that sync to the images on your television. Watching a huge white wall being attacked in the dead of winter? The backlighting behind your TV and media center turns ice blue! Talk about an immersive experience. Add to that wall tiles that are geometric (triangular, hexagonal, etc.) that attach together to create your very own wall pattern, all with backlit color-changing LED lighting. Heck, even the standard “light bulb” has gotten the color-changing treatment – you can have your bulbs turn red for Christmas, Green for St. Patty’s Day and purple for… well… just because you like purple!

The basic idea of wall washing is to hold a light very close to a wall and shine it up/down the wall. In this way, you can point out decorative choices (like they’ve done here using the Access Lighting Float 62607LEDD-MBL-ACR wall light to focus on the wall clock they have created. In our opinion, wall washing is at its most spectacular when you have an architectural wall (like exposed brick or stone) where the light will play off all the protrusions to create a uniquely dramatic downlight.

In lighting, a moonlighting effect is when you place a soft light high up to create the dramatic shadowing you might see while walking during a full moon. Here a small cluster of Livex Lighting 41171-66 metal shade pendant lights in a brilliant Brushed Aluminum finish are hung high enough to create the moonlighting effect (the higher, the better).

When searching through lighting ideas for a lounge or living room, there is no brighter focal point than a crystal and glass pendant in full sunlight. Refracted beams blanket your room in all their rainbow glory, creating a natural and breathtaking display. Special glass components, like the antiqued crackled glass in the Savoy House 7-200-3-322 pendant light create their own dramatic shadows whether lit from within or hit by beams of sunlight.

That didn’t take long. We’ve blown through twenty of our favorite living room lighting ideas to show you how easy it is to get inspired to make a meaningful change to your favorite living space. Adding layered lighting, using dimmers correctly, and selecting the decorative pieces that fit your own unique style is the key to creating highly functional and gorgeous living rooms. Count on your friends at 1StopLighting for the selection you want at the price you need!