8 Living Room Light Ideas For Your Home

Your living room lighting setup doesn’t just have to be a regular old lamp in the corner. You can take your living room to the next level by bringing in other fixtures that can cast the base ambient light, accent lighting on the walls, and task lighting throughout the room. With a lamp for every desire, your living room can be a true multipurpose home base. Here, check out our ideas perfect for setting the stage in the main room of your home.

Living room light ideas

A good living room lighting setup should be layered. Start with an ambient foundation that illuminates the whole room, typically a floor lamp. Then, top that with flourishes of decorative, functional accent fixtures like wall sconces and task lamps good for reading, crafting, puzzles, and more. Find some inspiration with the below eight ideas.

1. Color lasers

Why settle for everyday soft whites or calm yellows when you have a whole rainbow of options? You have plenty of choices with laser lights and bulbs that fit right at home in a living room. Lasers are brighter and more focused than LEDs. Plus, they can project stunning and clear patterns impossible with other types. Our red, blue, and green BlissBulbs create extraordinary starry-sky visuals. Incorporating them into your living room is a breeze: they screw right into your usual ambient, accent, or task fixtures like any ordinary bulb.

BlissBulb Laser LightBulb

$14.99

Transforming your world is as easy as changing a lightbulb.

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2. Accent lighting

This is a broad category of fixtures that are used to set the mood in your living room while drawing attention to furniture, paintings or framed pictures, and windows. When paired with the BlissLights Sky Lite, dimmed accent lighting projects an incredible show of moving laser stars against a soft nebula cloud, perfect for movie night or relaxation in the living room. They can also be used to direct attention away from parts of your room you do not want to emphasize. Wall sconces and pendant lighting are considered accents, as are the recessed fixtures in your ceilings. However, in the right situation, pendants can be bright enough to act as ambient lights as well. 

3. Low-hanging fixtures

Low-hanging fixtures are a great example of pendants that double as the main source of light in your living room. Wire a pendant through your ceiling (you can install hooks or run your wires over exposed pipes) and have it hang a few feet over your living room’s coffee table. You’ll at once get accent lighting on the table and enough will cast off to spread evenly throughout your living room.

4. Transparent fixtures

This living room fixture idea might sound strange at first, but transparent lighting stands alone from other fixtures for the way it reflects back light throughout a room. Typically made of glass or plastic, these strategically shaped shades diffract and amplify natural light that enters your home through nearby windows. You’ll often see chandeliers made with this transparent material, or you may see pendants shaded with it as well. This, coupled with the bulbs in the fixture, creates a pretty and memorable accent fixture.

5. Floor lamps

Floor lamps are main, ambient fixtures for brightening up the entirety of your living room. You may find these easier to install and maintain than ceiling fixtures: that’s because ceiling lights are often out of reach without a ladder, while floor lamps are much more accessible if your bulb ever burns out or you want to change it to a decorative one. Not to mention, ceiling lights aren’t exactly easy to install yourself -- you may need an electrician to help with that, while a floor lamp can simply be plugged in and repositioned wherever you’d like.

6. Large statement pieces

Some people say go big or go home, but with oversized statement lights, you can go big in your home. These fixtures are often overhead lights that, upon first glance, appear unwieldy, but in execution make a striking decorative splash. Not to mention, such a unique fixture can be a central figure in your decor. There’s no such thing as too big here – the sky (or, realistically, your ceiling) is the limit.

7. Sky lights

So far, most of these living room options have pertained to traditional off-white or soft yellow. That said, we mentioned colored lights earlier, though we only mentioned laser bulbs when, in fact, you have so many more color options, including sky lights.

Sky Lite Evolve: Smart Galaxy Projector

$49.99$39.99

The latest evolution in smart galaxy lighting.

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When we refer to sky lights in this blog, we’re not referring to the windows in your ceiling -- we’re referring to our Sky Lite Evolve Galaxy Projector (you might have seen it all over TikTok!). The Sky Lite is easy to set up: just place your projector where you want it, plug it in, and that’s it – stars and swirling galaxies galore! You’ll generate a fully immersive experience that you can only achieve with lasers. Speaking of which...

8. Aurora lights

Experience the aurora borealis without leaving home! We’ve followed the success of our Sky Lite with another immersive blue-green laser projector that’s perfect for your living room. Our Ark Ambient Aurora Light sends a green aurora gently drifting through your living room against blue hues that spread vividly throughout your entire space.

ARK Aurora Light

$29.99

Transcend reality with a moving abstract aurora.

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Living room lighting tips

Turn your newfound knowledge of living room lamps and fixtures into an interior design game plan with these tips:

• Go layered. We mentioned earlier that a good approach should be layered. We’ll stress this point again: Good living room lighting design requires more than ambient floor lamps or pendants. Don’t overlook task and accent fixtures– while secondary, both these types are fully necessary for a beautiful living room that’s lit in a functional way.
• Try three-point lighting. If you’re showing off a large framed portrait or furniture piece, you might want to use three lights to properly showcase it. Your ambient lighting can count as one fixture, with two accents flanking its sides (or one behind it and another at its front) filling in the rest.
• Don’t overdo it. There is such a thing as too many lamps! Sometimes, one ambient light and a few accent lights are enough. Maybe you can get away with an oversized statement fixture and a couple of task lamps. In any case, if you find yourself adding a lot of items to the mix, take a step back and consider whether everything you’re doing is truly necessary.
• Know how you’ll use the room. Your setup should vary based on how you use the room. Big TV watcher? Focus more on ambient, room-filling fixtures than on task and accent lighting. More of a bookworm? Don’t skimp on those table lamps that will make it easier to focus on the words. Love having guests over? Accent lighting can make your space more welcoming and memorable – especially if you use laser lights to put on incomparable sky or aurora projections.

For bright decor ideas, turn to BlissLights

Decorative lighting shines brilliantly against the fixtures set up in your living room. Whether you light the room with floor lamps or have pendants hanging over your coffee table, accent lighting works seamlessly with the lighting you already use every day. Creating the ambience you want is simple -- just plug in BlissLights.

At BlissLights, our projectors and other products can transform any room, including the living room, into a fully immersive, mood-setting experience with the press of a button. Whether you’re using our Sky Lite and some BlissBulbs to completely douse your living room in stunning sights or taking a subtler approach with our StarPort Laser USB, you can count on our lasers for one-of-a-kind ambient, accent, and task lighting. Browse our shop to find your favorite new living room fixture!