Colorful Lighting Ideas and Tips: Bring a Dash of Vibrance to Your Home

Colorful lighting fixtures lend a dash of brightness and beauty wherever you place them. They can enliven the decor theme of your kitchen, create continuity across open floor plans, and add a pop of unexpected color to your bedroom or bathroom décor. Incorporate lighting fixtures in colorful shades around your home for style that delights.

Use Colorful Lighting to Create a Welcoming Atmosphere

Colors evoke emotions—yellow, orange, and red generate feelings of warmth; green, purple, and blue are cool and calming. Here are easy ways to use gorgeous color in your home lighting design.

Select art glass lighting fixtures. These beautiful lights feature a mix of colorful glass, giving them the appearance of stained glass or mosaic tiles. Intricate and lively, these fixtures are mesmerizing no matter how long they've been in your home. No matter the type of light fixture (from pendants to chandeliers to sconces), they're almost always conversation-starters.

Diffuse light through a colored glass shade. Create a soft, gentle glow that spreads throughout the room. Pendants with soft blue glass shade lend a sweet touch in a breakfast nook, while red glass pendants lend bold beauty in a reading corner or library.

Remember, beautiful colors can be subtle. When we think of colors, bold and bright hues often pop to mind. But light fixtures can show off understated hues that complement a room's existing color scheme. A cozy room showcasing light yellows and browns, for example, benefits from a modern wood floor lamp. A hanging pendant in distressed metal finish with hints of grey and forest green adds subtle contrast to a white contemporary living room.

Factor in bulb color temperatures, too. You can still impact the color of your rooms without colored lights, shades, or finishes. Filling spaces with warm (soft white) or cool (bright daylight) illumination brings different hues out of your wall paint, carpet, and furnishings. Try hanging pendants with a cluster of cool, 3500K exposed Edison bulbs in the kitchen, or clear-shade wall sconces in the bedroom casting warm light powered by 2700K bulbs.

Light Imitates Art: Creative and Colorful Lighting Style Ideas

With bright colors and striking shapes, your lamps, pendants, and sconces moonlight as art installations. The art may be traditional, contemporary, or somewhere in between, but they are always bold and eye-catching. Artful (and colorful) light fixture styles to consider:

Art glass pendants. Modern and daring, or classic and chic—these expressive hanging light fixtures showcase custom, lively style. Gorgeous colors mix with distinctive designs and textures. A three-light cluster pendant in sunlit green is pretty above a kitchen island or within a bay window; a mini pendant featuring handmade toffee art glass and oil rubbed bronze details fits naturally in a den or bar area.

Tiffany-style light fixtures. Small, colorful pieces of glass come together in varied patterns, from simple Art Deco designs to flowers to fruit tableaus. A classic look, Tiffany-style lights have stood the test of time and remain popular additions to any room, either as a pretty accent or the primary light source. Feature a Tiffany-style billiard light in your game room; brighten a foyer with a single-light pendant; or elevate your reading chair with a floor lamp with a sophisticated and simple glass shade.

Colored glass chandeliers. Bold to begin with, chandeliers are true showstoppers when you add color to the mix. Opt for a classic chandelier with colorful elements or a jaw-dropping centerpiece with multi-color crystals.

Glass filter wall sconces. Use wall-mounted sconces to add blazes of dramatic color to the wall—up, down, or in both directions. The light itself becomes a striking accent.

Colorful floor and table lamps. The versatility and mobility of table and floor lamps make them perfect for experimenting with colorful lighting. A Mission-style lamp crafted with Tiffany-inspired copper foil glass adds a pop of beautiful color to a side table. Or add uplighting with a colorful torchiere with a sophisticated stained-glass shade.

Add a Pop of Color Throughout Your Home

Dynamic and bright hues. Warm, cozy tones. Colorful lighting sets the stage throughout your home.

Add depth and richness with kitchen glass pendant lights. Tie together your coastal decor style with a three-light pendant with sky blue glass above your breakfast bar. Or, install a smoked-glass pendant with pink flourishes above your kitchen island for a mod and feminine touch.

Select a subtle hue for the dining room. Deliver transcendent style with a chandelier showcasing amber etched-glass shades. These artful designs have a throw-back beauty that is utterly sophisticated—whether the chandelier has five lights or 12 lights.

Let color lead the way in hallways, foyers, and stairs. A flush-mount ceiling light with art-glass details worthy of a museum adds a burst of color to stairway landings with low ceilings. Or make a statement in your front hall or foyer with an industrial-chic steel pendant in fire engine red.

Lend spa-like colors to your bathroom. Add chic, soothing color to half-baths and master bathrooms with sconces and pendants. Metal sconces with a powder-blue finish are lovely additions to the powder room. Polished copper sconces in a contemporary silhouette delivers a welcome mix of modern polish and vintage charm. For a sophisticated take on vanity lighting, consider a series of lineup of three to four pendants in pistachio green or soft pink.

Brighten outdoor spaces with ceiling fans and pendants. While ceiling fan color choices tend to stick to black, white, metallic, and varying woodgrains, you should consider color here as well. For example, matte black outdoor fans look gorgeous in contrast to light yellow or grey walls. You can also extend farmhouse style across your porch with a windmill fan with weathered-wood blades.

Pendants and hanging lanterns also add welcome color to outdoor spaces with weathered finishes in green, copper, and faux wood.

Make Colorful Lighting Work for Each Space

Remember, you can often see light fixtures from one room to the next, especially in homes with open floor plans. Be sure to plan your colorful lighting carefully:

Watch out for clashing primary and accent colors. If you've gone for bright red lighting fixtures in your kitchen, purple fixtures in your adjacent living room may not balance well. Also, remember that you minimize the 'wow' factor of colorful lighting when every room features a vibrant palette. Make your entry hall or kitchen pop with brightly colored pendants, and then opt for more soothing tones elsewhere.

Lighting affects paint and furnishing colors. If you have a room with warm, soft lighting, wall paints with lighter tints can look dim. Paint and decor colors are more intense with fixtures featuring bright and cool light. Also, keep in mind large furnishings in dark colors absorb light, whereas white tends to bounce light around the room.

Understand color temperature. For a calming, relaxed vibe in the bedroom or bath, opt for light fixtures featuring cool colors, such as blues, purples, and greens. Add liveliness to spaces where people gather often (such as the dining room, living room, or great room) with warm colors of reds, oranges, and yellows.

Bulbs affect colors. Incandescent bulbs give off a warm, yellow-amber light that mutes blues and greens, while sharpening reds, oranges, and yellows. If you are looking for a way to make all the colors in a room more vivid, choose halogen bulbs that mimic natural light. And if you're feeling adventurous, utilize 'smart' LED bulbs, which allow you to change color signatures.

Ready to embrace a colorful lighting style in one room or across your home?