The Right Way to Decorate

Are you familiar with Luxembourg’s gorgeous gardens? This small country is famous for not only its aesthetically-pleasing gardens but also for its luscious forests. These two natural attributes make Luxembourg a perfect destination for travelers. You don’t need to go all the way to Europe to satisfy your biophilia. Why not take this inspiration inside?

Design for Indoor Living

When designing an interior to meet the requirements of your love for nature, or biophilia, the two most important things are plants and lighting.

Why should you care about Lighting?

We are missing out on the benefits of sunlight because we spend the majority of the day inside at work or home. We use artificial lighting to replace what we are missing. Lighting can literally light up any interior. It accents any room in a way that is unique to usual trinkets or collectibles. There are a few kinds of lighting that you should familiarize yourself with.

1. Ambient Lighting: the main light source of the room.
   • Dimmers, Chandelier
2. Task Lighting: specific lighting to carry out a task.
   • Ex. Cooking Lights, Study Lamp
3. Accent: light used to highlight things
   • Lighting over a painting, Spotlight
4. Grow Lights: lights with a spectrum that allows you to grow plants indoors.

Not only does lighting appear beautiful in any interior. It also has many health benefits. Light affects our body's circadian rhythm. This is our wake and sleep cycle. We respond to light. Lighting is also proven to help people with depression. More specifically, light therapy can help treat conditions like seasonal affective disorder.

Why should you keep plants indoors?

"Biophilia may be described as a vague preference for having a natural environment as a consequence of our evolutionary history. As such, one would expect that plants are agreeable, and that the absence of greenery is sensed, possibly unconsciously, as a stress factor. In other words, the presence of plants can impact on the human mind." (Grinde 2009) Plants are a great tool for intricate designs. They are literally living things so they offer so much potential. Since they are living things they also require proper care. The means they need a good environment to thrive in. This can be created with the right temperature, the correct lighting and love and care. Some creative ways to design with plants are as simple as adding plants to your desk or placing it on your windowsill. If you want to go even further you can build a plant wall or have one installed. Whether you've got tall ceilings or limited space, there is definitely a way to decorate with plants. Similar to lighting, indoor plants offer multiple health benefits. It isn't just a freshness of the air. They literally clean the air around us. Having plants indoors is like having a natural air purifier. Our ears get a nice break too! Having indoor plants, especially with plant walls, creates a natural barrier to the noisy world outside. If you've got tired ears it might be time to hang up some plants! That isn't all. Plants also adjust the environment around them. Sometimes they can naturally cool the room they are in. That means less air-conditioning in the summer and lots of money saved.

Plants require a special kind of lighting

There are many options for grow lights. We always recommend LED because of their cost efficiency, low cost, and beautiful display capabilities. It is the closest you can get to having a sun inside! You cannot use typical light bulbs because they do not emit a full spectrum of color. Sunlight goes through the entire light spectrum during the day, so you need a light that will mimic this. Incandescent bulbs only emit yellow and orange wavelengths while LEDs produce a full spectrum of color.

How to get started?

There are a few questions you need to answer before you add lighting and living plants to your home and office. First, what is your motive for adding these plants and lighting? Do you want to capture a certain aesthetic? Do you want to boost your employee’s moods? Secondly, what kind of environment is your home or office? This is an integral question to answer because the livelihood and longevity of your plants depend on it. You wouldn’t want to place a succulent in an extremely humid environment or a plant in a dark corner. Do you have windows? These are useful, but not necessary to decorate with plants indoors. Improvements in technology have given us the ability to grow and cultivate plants indoors. All you need is the proper lighting. The process of placing proper lighting and living plants is ever-going. How you place a light will affect how you place a plant and so forth.

What kind of plants are right for you?

• Click here to see what you can grow indoors!
• Shop this book to pick out the right kinds of plants and how to place them

What kind of lighting should you choose?

• There are many options for lighting, but not all of them are luxury. Shop sleek and beautiful lights here.

Get help from professionals

Here at Soltech Solutions we are readily available to help. Nobody knows lighting and plants quite like us. Some of the services that we provide are: -professional consultancy -horticultural specification -design -recommendations on proper lighting -quotes -references Contact us here with all your plant and lighting design inquiries! References

1. https://www.britannica.com/science/biophilia-hypothesis
2. https://en.parisinfo.com/paris-museum-monument/71393/Jardin-du-Luxembourg
3. https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/organization/office-of-governmentwide-policy/office-of-federal-highperformance-buildings/resource-library/health/circadian-light-for-your-health
4. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lighting-basics_b_8004720
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2760412/https://www.ambius.com/green-walls/benefits/