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How Much Light for a Dining Room? Video Tutorial
How Much Light Will You Really Need for Your Dining Room Design?
Transcript – How Much Dining Room Light?
[00:00:00] All right, let’s design the lighting for a dining room. So first step is going to be figuring out the square footage of this room. So let me grab that.
Okay. So approximately 205. And then the next step is to come over to our calculator. Um, I’m going to plan on having some bright finishes in this dining room. So we’re going to go with this first calculator. Um, let’s change it to dining room. Oh, I already forgot how many, two Oh five. Okay. Two Oh five. And then we do have some taller ceilings here at 10 feet.
So let’s grab a screen snip [00:01:00] this, go back to our plan.
Alright, so I can have this a reference later. So that’s our target. So, the foot candle target is 20, and this is set by the illuminating engineering society of North America and the department of energy. And all right, let’s, let’s start. So I like to mark up the plan with some guidelines of.
Alignments that we could take our cues from. So are there, um, appliances? These are under cabinet refrigerators here. Could we line up with the central lines of these windows? It does have a pretty clear, symmetry to it. So we know that the table is probably going to [00:02:00] be right there. Ish. So the first thing I like to do is see if there are any vertical surfaces in the room that we can light.
This is going to have a huge impact on how people perceive the space and how they perceive how bright it is. So let’s. I think in this case, let’s plan on lighting this wall here. So I’m going to grab some adjustable lights
and I like to have these about 24 to 30 inches away from the wall surface. So let’s add a few more
and then, okay. So next let’s take a look at. Lighting the dining table area itself. A lot of people like to rely exclusively on selecting a beautiful decorative pendant over the table. [00:03:00] But in many cases, this isn’t actually going to be bright enough to deliver the illumination we need to highlight the food and really kind of create this beacon within the space.
That’s drawing you over there when it’s time to eat. So I do like to have. Decorative lights. And in this case, we do have a pretty clear symmetry, so we’re not going to have to worry about the lights being out of alignment with the table itself, but I do like to also add in some additional lights from either downlights or maybe some adjustable lights.
I like to use these multi head adjustable lights so that you have a lot of freedom to illuminate the table itself.
We don’t really want to light the chairs around the table because people don’t really like to sit in a spotlight. So the goal is really to just Aim the lighting onto that table [00:04:00] surface itself. All right, let’s, let’s see how we’re doing on our lumens. So I like to start off with kind of my go to lights.
We start here and then, other people on the design team usually weigh in and we modify from there. So let’s grab these. Let’s see how we’re doing on our illumination, put that in
one there. And then we have three of these accent lights going to go with the, he’s warmed in. I like the mud up trim for the flange list option. Let’s spring for that. And then we have to value engineer later. That’s fine. We have a lot of options. So that’s 900 lumens.[00:05:00]
Alright, so we’re going to do three of those.
Let’s see where we’re at. So that’s going to be
2, 700 plus 2, 025 plus 2, 025 So that gives us 6, 750, so we are over a bit, which means that this pendant over the dining table could be fairly dim if we wanted, it could be just like a sparkly, beautiful element within the space. Um, But let, let’s just see, so if, if we took out, what if we did two pendants and only one of these in the center,[00:06:00]
do that in the center, and then we’ll do two pendants to anchor this
So, and then that means we have one less of these. All right. What’s, what’s the new number here.
Okay. So all the lighting except for the pendants, that brings us to 47, 25. So if we subtract that from the 56, 95.
So that means that each of these pendant lights is going to need to be, um, [00:07:00] 450. So we need a total of 900 from the pendants, so 450 and 450. So now I can go back to the interior designer or the homeowners, and we can do a search for beautiful decorative lighting out there, and we understand that it needs to be at least 450 lumens.
All right. So hopefully that made sense. Give the calculator a shot, if you’d like me to double check your work, I’m happy to do that. And if you have other lights in mind for your project, just keep in mind that you want to make sure to, um, buy LEDs that have a high color rendering score, we want to make sure it’s at least 90.
That way we’re bringing out the true color of the materials in our space that we’re spending. Thousands of dollars to put in there. All right. That’s it for now. And, uh, the next video is going to be on kitchens [00:08:00] and I’ll put it, I’ll put the link to the calculator down in the YouTube description below.
All right. Thanks.
Works Cited: Quality Dining Room Lighting
Duncan, Steve. “Why Is It Important to Do a Lighting Calculation?” Lighting Design Insights. [LightingJUMP.com, https://www.lightingjump.com/how-many-lights-forest-vibe].
The author emphasizes the necessity of conducting lighting calculations to ensure effective lighting design in various spaces. He cites the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) and the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) for their established footcandle targets that help determine appropriate lighting levels. Duncan also mentions the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Department of Energy’s publicly available footcandle targets, which he uses for residential projects.
He shares a personal anecdote about the complications that arise from inadequate lighting, stressing the importance of precise calculations to avoid costly adjustments and excessive spending. The lighting estimator featured on his webpage is designed to assist clients in achieving optimal lighting without overspending.
References – Quality Residential Lighting Design
- Duncan, Steve. “Why Is It Important to Do a Lighting Calculation?” Lighting Design Insights. .
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) in Residential Lighting.” NREL/TP-53467. 2012. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/53467.pdf.
- Illuminating Engineering Society. “Standards.” https://store.ies.org/individual-standards/?v=0b3b97fa6688.
- International Association of Lighting Designers. “About the IALD.” https://iald.org/IALD/IALD/About/About-
