Your Lighting Control that shifts with the sun and sets the mood

The sun sets a little earlier every week this time of year, so a dinner planned for seven o'clock now starts in the dark. That's when most rooms show their weakness. You can pick the right wine and the right flowers, but one flat wash of overhead light still makes a beautiful table look dull. It’s a great way to kill the mood before dinner even starts. 

Lighting control lets you take command of the lighting all day. We pair Lutron HomeWorks with Ketra fixtures that follow the color and warmth of daylight, so your home stays comfortable from the last of the afternoon sun to the last glass of wine. Here's how that works.

Get the Right Lighting All Day 

Ketra lighting shifts throughout the day automatically. Mornings start cooler and brighter. By late afternoon the light warms, and after dark it settles into an amber glow close to candlelight. The room feels right for any given hour without anyone ever touching a dimmer. A standard dimmer changes how bright a light is. Ketra also changes its color, which is what makes the evening feel different from the afternoon.

Anyone who has watched a Southern California sunset through a wall of windows knows how fast a room changes once the sun drops. Standard fixtures hold one color the whole time, so the interior suddenly doesn’t match the view outside. Ketra keeps the two in step.

We program the schedule into your HomeWorks system, so your shades can follow it. As the sun sets, shades lower on cue for privacy while the lights warm.

Evening Scenes Help You Unwind

A home gets used differently based on the room and application. A bright morning scene helps you get ready. A cooler midday scene suits the kitchen island or a home office. By evening, many people reach for warm and low, because soft amber light is easier to relax in after a long day.

With HomeWorks, each of those moods is a saved scene on a keypad, in an app, or on a schedule. Press one button and the lights and shades shift together. A dinner scene might bring the room down low and keep the table slightly brighter, so the food and the faces are the focus. Your family stops hunting for the right switch, and the house does what you would have done by hand if you had the time. Our post on tunable lighting goes deeper into the way the right lighting affects your mood throughout the day. .

How Light Changes What You See

Light also decides how people and objects look. Under low-quality bulbs, a navy jacket can read as black and skin tones turn washed out. Under well-tuned light, the jacket looks navy again, and getting dressed for an event goes faster because you trust what you see in the mirror.

The table works the same way. Warm, soft light makes food look appetizing and gives flowers and candles a glow. Ketra lets us dial in the exact color for each moment, from focus work to crisp daylight, and HomeWorks saves it as a scene you can recall with one touch.

Art and architecture respond to the right light, too. A textured plaster wall or a favorite painting looks richer under light chosen for it. A good plan also puts the light where the eye goes, such as the art on the wall or the face across the table, so the best time to plan it is while the design is still on paper. 

Plan Your Evenings Around Better Light

If you plan to host this season, or just want evenings at home to feel better, contact our team to arrange a showroom visit by appointment. Tell us which rooms you host in most, and we'll start there. Bring your designer or architect along if you're working with one. Custom projects take time, so a conversation now beats a scramble in December.