Lighting Planning New Construction - Online Lighting Consultation

Hello everyone,

we will start building our single-family house in a few weeks and are currently in the middle of planning the lighting. We have gotten some inspiration from friends who have also built in recent years, some of whom had a professional lighting plan created and others who planned themselves or with the electrician. We also had an online lighting consultation from a provider, but we were not really satisfied with this plan. For example, here the spots in the kitchen were only placed behind the countertop, which would cast shadows everywhere.

Attached you will find our current plan, and we would appreciate it if you could give us tips and comments on the plan. The blue points marked are recessed ceiling spots. The pink points are ceiling outlets for ceiling or pendant lamps. The green points are wall lights and the yellow stripes are LED strips. The LED strip in the living area should be positioned at the transition from wall to ceiling. The LED strip at the bottom of the bathroom is intended to run as a decorative element in the middle of the wall, and the LED strips in the shower at the top of the bathroom should run vertically from the ceiling to the floor and illuminate the shower (we saw this at friends’ houses, where it creates a nice light in the shower).

What do you think of the plan? Too much? Too little?

Best regards,
Tina-89

I just had a quick look. Without any claim to completeness, the following:

Hallway: I think there are too many spotlights, but it depends on the type
Garage: has no light
Kitchen: too many but see above
Living room: possibly 1x too few (wall lamps planned?)
Bathroom: too many, there is somewhere a thread from who has suspicious lighting in the bathroom OP
Child 1: the light at the workstation comes from the left
Otherwise, it’s like with tiles, you have to see it and there are at least 50 opinions.

Overall, far too many spots. Most likely unnecessarily expensive because, for example, concrete boxes are needed, etc.

Living-dining-kitchen then too little light... with click-clack I already see the switch batteries on the wall.

Take a look around here in the other lighting planning topics, especially the most recent one also mentions a useful planning tool for simulation. Many lighting planners do little more than draw lamp shopping lists onto the floor plan. Nice and certainly a small step forward for the complete layman, but not really worth the money.

Should your dining table stand so far down in the bay window, it is quite tight. In the living room, a second ceiling lamp is still missing, unless you are fine with it being a bit darker. We have a similar hallway as you have upstairs. There we still have a ceiling lamp centered between the two walls, staircase and bathroom, and an additional wall lamp that we turn on at night. I would also have put a door between the dressing room and the bedroom.

Best regards Sabine

I assume that you do not want to spend too much money on spots etc. Otherwise, get advice again and raise your concerns accordingly in the conversation. It runs via Skype etc. nowadays.
In the bathroom, 3 pieces + mirror lights are enough. Possibly a 4th one above the shower, but that is not necessarily needed.
In the upper floor hallway, you could do 3 spots. 2 parallel to the current outlet and one further to the right.
The "wall lights" by the stairs are downlights? Otherwise, way too many.
Downstairs bathroom needs 2 pieces or simply one outlet.
I would have canceled the LED strip in the living room and simply placed an LED band behind the TV.
One outlet above the kitchen island is sufficient and 4 spots in the kitchen.
I would also have used only 4 spots in the hallway.

The whole thing still depends on the light source, distance, usability etc. We installed cheap ones from Amazon that were also installed at my parents' and a friend's place. I assume that the lighting planner uses spots with less power and in the end, it more or less comes down to the same thing.
Here are a few key data.

Recessed wall lights (downlights) for stairs - 3W 3000k warm white.
LED recessed spotlights (bathroom) - 3.5W 6000k cool white.
LED recessed spotlights (hallway, kitchen) 3.5W 3000k warm white.

I also recommend that you simply get 5-6 different spots from Amazon and connect them at home.