Lighting the dining area in a glorious old Hampshire barn

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Barn Lighting

We’re lucky to have worked on many barn lighting projects all over the UK. Whether these are glorious old structures or more contemporary steel frame conversions they can really benefit from a sympathetic, bespoke lighting design.

We apply the same design principles that we would for other houses but there are often additional challenges in the form of immense vaulted ceilings or conversely, incredibly low ceilings in places. Older barns may also be listed which brings another set of design considerations and constraints.

Planning your lighting early is even more important

Barns can be tricky spaces to light. The structures themselves can be quite unforgiving in terms of cable routing and concealing control gear. Listed building restrictions may require innovative lighting solutions and buy-in from the wider project team. All this means it’s more important to plan early, test ideas and solutions and minimise change through the project.

Detail of high output, low glare ground recessed uplight in a beamed barn

Use fittings capable of dealing with the demands of the spaces

The huge vaulted ceilings in some barns challenge preconceptions about what is needed in a “domestic” light fitting. Appropriate light output, glare control, discretion, clever fixing methods, colour, colour rendering and dimming are always important, but particularly so in unusual and complex spaces.

Be creative with fixing locations

Early planning enables a cohesive approach, incorporating – as appropriate – the floor, walls, joinery etc. This requires meticulous attention to detail and creative use of a broad range of innovative light fittings, but the results can be spectacular.

Ground recessed uplights throw light upwards and the improved output of LED means that the floor is a great way to light features in barns. Conversely there are locations that are really difficult to light but call out to be lit. We’ve developed custom mounting options to allow us to use small, barely noticeable fittings to deliver just the right accent light to particular features.

Lighting control is hugely useful in large inter-connected spaces

A lighting control system massively simplifies using interesting lighting across large, multi-functional, multi-zone spaces. Simple lighting keypads control all the lights across the barn, lighting each zone as needed and making lighting scenes easy to call up. Unlike conventional switching, lighting control means you have the same level of control and dimming from any keypad location.

Lighting control systems can also control electric blinds & curtain tracks

Barn conversions frequently feature large windows, which can be challenging for manual control of blinds or curtains. Lutron’s electric blinds and curtain tracks are a joy to use, and can be pre-programmed to open/close at particular times of day, or to simulate occupancy.