A dinner or intimate evening at home with your significant other can be much more romantic than dining out amid a busy Valentine’s Day restaurant crowd. You control the mood, the moment, the food and the music, and your loved one knows it’s just for her or him.
Studies show that light has terrific influence on our mood: brightly-lit surroundings generate more intense emotions and can lift or lower spirits depending on the company and location of the light. Not everyone responds the same way to every light environment, nor is every lighting scenario good for every occasion. Appropriate lighting can make your special evening memorable, so plan ahead.
When your special one arrives, light the drive, path or entryway with preset warm and welcoming lighting. The living room or den can become magical if you light them in zones rather than using one setting for the entire space. The seating can be made welcoming with low accent lighting, the kitchen bright but warmly lit, and the dining area somewhat lower, with highlights on the meal you prepared just for your guest. If you want a long chat or just couple time, keep the room visible but not harsh. If you’re sharing a cozy movie night, keep the light low to make that big screen the focal point for you both, while leaving a couple of accent lights on so the room doesn’t become a dungeon.
Take a break from indoors and enjoy our beautiful night sky with very low lighting on the patio and a little favorite background music for more romance. The lights in the sky have been around a while and their beauty is enhanced by the difference between their glow and the surrounding darkness. You and your guest can make your own light too. It’s your evening to shine.
Setting all this up may sound involved or daunting, but you can have it all at a touch with LUTRON lighting controls: from your portable device or the system’s keypads you set up each area beforehand, to be instantly and easily recalled and put into action for your special evening. Set the entry for inviting warm lighting, the living room for intimate mood lighting, keep the kitchen or staging area bright for prepping, and have your patio ready for starlit romance with just enough light to see your partner. LUTRON systems enable you to preset entry, living room, kitchen, patio and the rest of the house with just the right amount and style of lighting to make the evening memorable for you both. You can even have all this preset to begin before you arrive and have a beautiful welcome when you step out of the car.
“If music be the food of love, play on.”
Light makes a big difference to couples’ enjoyment of each other’s company, but music helps too. SONOS makes distributed sound systems just as responsive to your desires as carefully preplanned and preset lighting. Try having your entertainment system set to come on at your arrival, play preselected music you know your companion loves and have the system transition at dinner time to something a bit more intimate, and accompany after-dinner chat on the patio to soft classical or jazz background. All this too can be accomplished with ease and a carefully designed and installed system from WATT INTEGRATION. The rest is up to you.