Guide to plan your home's ceiling and lighting

Nowadays we rarely see a home without false ceiling done. It has become a norm to go for false ceiling along with LED panel lights/cove lights which will enhance the look of a home by many folds. However, this same ceiling and lighting can make or break the look of a home when it's designed by not considering the aesthetics and functionality.

In this blog, I will touch upon these two important aspects of a home by giving some idea on what to consider before you go ahead.

FALSE CEILING

The false ceiling is predominantly made of two types of materials, one is POP (Plaster of Paris) and the other one being gypsum boards. Of these two types, POP is cheaper by about 50% when compared with gypsum board and for people on a budget, should be an option for consideration. The advantages of a POP ceiling just end there and there are quite a few disadvantages which outweigh the cost advantage. This is of inferior quality when compared to gypsum boards and will not last long enough showing signs of sagging and flaking. In general, the contractors use channels (the metal frames which holds together the false ceiling) which are plain on the surface and usually do not possess higher load carrying capacities. In comparison, the gypsum boards are of superior quality and will give a uniform finish without any undulations when treated properly. The boards are usually of 6'x4' size with a thickness of about 12 mm. There are also different variants like water proof, fire resistant boards etc., which obviously will be tad bit expensive.and the applications of which will be based on the project need. The channels which hold together these gypsum boards are usually made of high strength steel and commonly referred to as 'ultra channels'. These channels have a better load bearing capacity because of their knurling design pattern and also have a better screw holding capability.

Notice the knurling design of the ultra channels on the right

Once you have decided on the budget that you want to allocate to the false ceiling, the next step would be to finalize the design. No matter how superior quality material you have used, if the ceiling's design doesn't gel with the overall theme of the house, the false ceiling looks out of place. I have seen some designs wherein the designer/worker seemed to incorporate every possible design that is out there into the ceiling - avoid doing that as it will not only make the ceiling look gaudy but also will give it a cluttered look, which is neither possible to fathom nor to maintain. The mantra for ceiling design is 'less is more' - choose something that is simple yet elegant, modern yet practical.

A ceiling gone overboard vs a simple elegant ceiling

After the designs to be used are finalized, it comes to actual execution of the design where the renderings of the designer are to be transitioned into the real world and is completely dependent on the workmanship of the worker on the job. To begin with, the slab/ceiling is leveled with the help of water leveling technique and ideally should look flat w.r.t the floor when finished. The height of the false ceiling from the slab will depend on the design we choose and it can be as low as 4 inches and can go up to 8 inches from the slab. Since most of the apartment's ceilings aren't that high to begin with, we should look to keep the false ceiling as high as possible (from the floor) so as to have proper ventilation. The important aspects we need to consider before finalizing the height is to taken into account the electrical pipes that will run along the slab/or laid on the frame, the copper piping for split AC's and any wiring for home theatre/music systems - all these have to be planned and should be in place before the ceiling work starts. Also, the points for hanging lamps, chandeliers have to be decided at the beginning and a chain with hook would be fixed to the slab. The fan and light points have also to be pre-decided so as to not interfere with the channel framework later when installing them. And if you are going with a fancy high-end fan, you would normally get a rod of similar finish as the fan - so if you do not want to spoil the look of the fan, the same fan rod has to be fixed first before completing the ceiling.

For accommodating the cove lights (rope/strip lights), the ceilings are designed to have an inbuilt groove to house the lights - the verticals of these grooves should at least be 4 inches deep and also to have a clear space of about 3 inches from the base false ceiling. This will help in better reflection of the lighting and also can accommodate any LED drivers in the groove. Before finalization of the ceiling work, the flatness of the ceiling has to be checked with a flat object (like a piece of ply or a horizontal metal hollow frame) to see that there are no gaps/sagging of boards, and if any gaps are found then the ceiling has to be adjusted accordingly till the desired finish is achieved.

An experienced worker would consider all these aspects before/during the course of the work.

Then the ceiling work would be a wrap with coats of putty, primer and color. The color of the ceiling should be white if you intend that particular space to be bright all round the clock (due to better reflection of the white light). In cases where brightness of a room isn't a priority, then you can go ahead with either painting or wall papers, choosing whatever fits best as per your budget and décor theme.

The other ceilings that you can consider are PVC ceilings, 3D ceiling panels and stretch ceilings, whose trend is catching up nowadays.

Alternate Ceilings - 3D Panels, PVC Ceiling and Stretch Ceilings

LIGHTING

One cannot stress enough the importance of lighting in a home as it determines the ambience of a home and will supposedly influence your mood and well being. The right lighting will further complement the interiors of your home. But before we jump into understand 'how much light is enough light', we need to know about the three types of lighting.

Ambient lighting

This is the type of lighting which will set up the overall atmosphere of the room. It will sweep across the room with just about there lighting and will be more than enough to move freely without bumping onto each other or tripping over furniture. It is the expected natural lighting in a room and helps you unwind after a long day.

How to achieve this ambient lighting in a room? Well, this can be done by using a floor lamp, wall lights and recessed and cove lights too.

Task lighting

This is the light that is required to carry out the day to day tasks like studying, working with the computer, sewing, cooking etc. without straining your eyes.

This can be achieved by panel lighting bright enough to carry out the activities without any hindrance. It can also be achieved by using track lighting or under cabinet lighting.

Object Lighting

This type of lighting is required when you want to highlight a painting, an artefact, a designer wall etc. generally done to accentuate the look of the item on which the light is focused. This light is also called as spot lighting or accent lighting.

This is achieved by using track lighting, spot lights and usually only used occasionally and cannot be a substitute for a room's lighting needs.

Now, the questions that pop up in your mind would be like how much is the right amount of light for a room? How do you assess the number of light fixtures to be bought? What should be their specification? These days everybody is preferring LED lights for reasons like longevity, lower power consumption, value for money etc. There are lots of brands available in the market and established international brands like Philips, Syska, Panasonic etc. offer quality products and at relatively low cost (as most of them are manufactured locally nowadays). There are also some Indian and Chinese brands which are good too for regular use, and depending on an individuals budget one can go for them. Better go for the one's which has a longer warranty period, even better a replacement warranty. Primarily, there are few things to look out for while selecting your light fixtures:

1. Watts or Lumens?

The wattage of a light is often mistaken for the brightness of the light, what we need to understand is that 'watts' tell the power that the fixture consumes and number of 'lumens' is the actual metric which tells about the brightness. So the more the number of lumens, the brighter the light. And lumens required for a room are dependent on the size of the room and the purpose of the light. There are online calculators which give us the required lumens for a requirement after we provide the room size and the intended purpose. I generally use this link to assess the number of lights required for a room.

2. Kelvins in a LED light?

There are broadly three types of LED panels that are manufactured based on the available kelvin spectrum. Those are warm, day light and cool light options. The warm light will have the least number of kelvins and the white or cool light will have the highest. So depending on your requirement for the space to be lit, you could choose either one (there are also some brands which provide all the three types of light in a single LED panel). Generally speaking, people often choose white light by default, but I recommend trying the 'day light' type of LED lights for effective lighting for your home.

3. Plastic or metal casing?

The dealers would always try to sell the plastic casing lights as they are cheaper and the metal casing ones are a bit expensive. So if budget isn't a constraint for you, insist on buying the ones with the metal casing as they have better heat dissipation capability, leading to long life.

Now that you understood the factors to be considered while buying LED panels, the next important thing would be their placement in the room. Wrongly placed LED's can be an eye sore. Know that most of the ceiling lights have a focus angle of 120 to 140 degrees and before finalizing the placement of the panels, one should consider this parameter. Also, they are not supposed to be pushed to the extreme corner of the ceiling or brought into the center of the room. If they are at the corner, the light emitted isn't of much use to us as majority of the light falls on the walls/wardrobes and if they are brought into the centre, they will be over the sweep of the fan, thus giving a flickering light when both fan and lights are switched on. Also, placing the main LED's in the ceiling grooves will not give desired effect or rather will not serve its actual purpose.

Hope the information in this blog was useful to you and if it can help you in planning your ceiling and lighting pattern, I would consider my job done. Would be happy to help to answer any questions that you may have in this regard.

Srikanth Anasuri

Meticular Interiors

+91 799 5699 585

Disclaimer: This blog is just for information purpose and in no way endorsing the brand names of products, mentioned if any. The rights for images will rest with the respective owners and I do not intend to showcase them as my own work.