One ceiling fixture is the problem
A single light in the middle of the ceiling lights the floor and the tops of everybody in the room. It flattens everything and puts shadows under faces. Rooms that feel comfortable have light coming from three or four places at different heights instead.
1. The Overhead Light
Keep it, but treat it as the light you use when you are looking for something, not the light you sit under. If it is on a dimmer, run it low and let the other sources do the work.
2. Light At Eye Level
Table lamps on end tables and nightstands. This is the layer that does the most for how a room feels, because the light arrives from the side rather than overhead. Two lamps at this height in a living room is usually the tipping point.
3. Light The Corners
A floor lamp fills the dark corner that furniture cannot reach. Behind a chair or beside a sofa arm, angled into the room rather than at the wall.
4. Add A Low Glow
Candles or a small accent light on a low surface. It contributes almost no useful light and a great deal of the atmosphere people are actually after when they say a room feels warm.
Two things to standardize
- Use one color temperature throughout a room. Mixing warm and cool bulbs is the most common reason a well-lit room still looks wrong.
- Put as much as possible on a switch you can reach while seated. A light you have to stand up to turn on is a light you stop using.