You’re building a home or planning a major remodel, and someone asks:

“What’s your lighting budget?”

It’s a reasonable question.

It’s also a surprisingly difficult one to answer if you’ve never purchased lighting for an entire house before.

Should you budget $3,000?

$5,000?

$10,000?

$20,000?

More?

The answer depends much less on a universal formula and much more on what you’re building, how many fixtures you need, the scale of those fixtures, the quality you’re looking for and how you want the finished home to feel.

The American Lighting Association (ALA) recommends assessing your space, wants and needs and working with a lighting-showroom professional to develop a lighting solution. Its planning guidance specifically notes that showroom professionals can work with a customer’s budget and design vision.

That’s ultimately the best way to establish a precise lighting budget.

But what if you’re much earlier in the process and simply need a rough planning number?

Here’s a practical place to start.

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First, Understand What We Mean by a Lighting Budget

Before calculating anything, determine what your “lighting budget” is supposed to cover.

Ask your builder or electrician whether the allowance includes:

• Decorative light fixtures
• Chandeliers
• Pendants
• Sconces
• Bathroom vanity lights
• Ceiling fixtures
• Ceiling fans
• Exterior decorative fixtures
• Recessed lighting
• Under-cabinet lighting
• Tape and accent lighting
• Stair or step lighting
• Landscape lighting
• Bulbs
• Drivers and transformers
• Dimmers and controls
• Smart lighting products
• Installation and electrical labor

This matters enormously.

A $7,500 decorative-fixture allowance is not the same thing as a $7,500 budget expected to pay for decorative fixtures, recessed lighting, controls, bulbs and installation.

Before asking whether the number is adequate, make sure everyone agrees on what the number includes.

Your Lifestyle Should Determine the Lighting Plan

Before you count fixtures or estimate what they might cost, there’s an even more important question:

Who decided where the lighting should go in the first place?

An electrical or construction plan may show fixture locations, but that doesn’t necessarily mean those locations represent the best lighting plan for you.

Your contractor and electrician are essential parts of building the home. But before the electrical layout is finalized, the homeowners and a lighting consultant should have an opportunity to help inform the lighting plan based on how the people living in the home will actually use it.

The house shouldn’t dictate how you light it. The way you live in the house should.

Think about the difference these questions can make:

• Do you cook frequently, and where do you actually need task lighting in the kitchen?
• Is the kitchen island primarily for food preparation, entertaining, homework or all three?
• Do you want pendants over the island, and what size and number make sense?
• Where will your dining table actually sit, and is the electrical box centered over it?
• How will you arrange the furniture in the great room?
• Do you read in the living room or bedroom?
• Do you want ceiling fans in bedrooms, the great room or outdoor spaces?
• Will you need bedside sconces or other dedicated reading lights?
• How do you get ready in the morning, and what kind of bathroom lighting will make that space function well?
• Do you want under-cabinet lighting for kitchen tasks and evening illumination?
• Are there stairs or hallways where low-level lighting would improve nighttime navigation?
• Do you own artwork, furniture or architectural features you want to highlight?
• Do you entertain frequently?
• Do you prefer bright spaces, softer environments or the ability to transition between the two?
• How do you use your outdoor spaces after dark?
• Which rooms deserve decorative fixtures that become part of the home’s design?
• Where would dimmers or lighting controls make the home more comfortable and flexible?

Those answers can change the lighting plan.

A great room isn’t simply “a room that needs six recessed lights.” It’s a place where someone might watch television, entertain friends, read, relax in the evening and enjoy a fireplace or artwork. Those activities may call for different types and layers of light.

The same principle applies throughout the house.

Don’t Wait Until the Electrical Plan Is Set in Stone

This is one of the reasons we encourage homeowners to meet with a lighting consultant early in the construction process.

Your electrician needs to know where electrical boxes, switches, wiring and other components need to go. Your contractor needs a plan the trades can build from.

But your needs and preferences should help inform that plan before those decisions become expensive or difficult to change.

Working with a lighting consultant early can help identify:

• Where decorative fixtures should be located
• Where additional lighting may be beneficial
• Where recessed lighting makes sense
• Where recessed lighting shouldn’t be expected to do everything
• Where sconces could improve function or design
• Where task lighting is needed
• Where under-cabinet lighting should be planned
• Where accent or architectural lighting could add value to the space
• Where ceiling fans are appropriate
• What size and scale of fixtures the architecture may require
• Which lighting layers make sense for each room
• Where dimming and controls should be considered
• Which fixture locations deserve a larger share of the lighting budget

And there’s another important reason to do this before establishing your final lighting budget:

You can’t accurately budget for a lighting plan you haven’t created yet.

If your lifestyle and preferences reveal that you need three kitchen pendants, six sconces, under-cabinet lighting, two ceiling fans and more exterior lighting than the original plan anticipated, those aren’t simply design changes.

They’re budget considerations.

That’s why we believe the sequence matters:

First, understand how you want to live in the home. Then determine how the home should be lit. Then develop a lighting budget that supports that plan.

A lighting consultant can help connect all three.

At Unique Lighting & Home Decor, we can work with homeowners early to help identify their lighting needs and preferences so those ideas can be coordinated with their contractor and electrician before the electrical plan is finalized.

Your electrician builds the electrical system. Your contractor builds the house. But you are the one who has to live in it. Your lighting plan should start with you.

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Step 1: Count Your Decorative Fixture Locations

For a quick preliminary estimate, pull out your floor plan and count the fixtures you’ll need.

Don’t worry about choosing exact fixtures yet.

Start with the obvious locations:

• Kitchen pendants
• Dining-room chandelier
• Great-room chandelier or fixture
• Foyer or entry fixture
• Bathroom vanity lights
• Bedroom fixtures
• Hallway fixtures
• Sconces
• Ceiling fans
• Laundry-room fixture
• Mudroom fixture
• Pantry fixture
• Closet fixtures
• Front-entry exterior fixtures
• Garage exterior fixtures
• Patio and deck fixtures
• Other exterior decorative fixtures

Let’s say you count 30 decorative fixtures and ceiling fans.

Write down 30.

That’s your starting point.

Don’t Forget the Second Layer of Overhead Lighting

When you’re counting decorative fixture locations, don’t assume that one ceiling fixture is necessarily enough for an entire room.

In many of the primary rooms of a home, we like to consider two separately controlled levels of overhead lighting:

• A central decorative fixture on its own switch or circuit, such as a chandelier, pendant, ceiling fixture or ceiling fan with a light.
• Additional overhead ambient lighting, often recessed can lights or disk lights, separately controlled so they can supplement the central fixture when more general illumination is needed.

Why separate them?

Because you don’t need the same amount or type of light all day.

A great room might use the central decorative fixture by itself in the evening for a softer atmosphere. When you’re cleaning, entertaining or simply want the room brighter, you can turn on the additional recessed or disk lighting. At other times, you may use both.

The same thinking can apply to spaces such as:

• Kitchens
• Great rooms
• Living rooms
• Primary bedrooms
• Large bedrooms
• Dining areas
• Home offices
• Bonus rooms
• Large entries or foyers

This is also why fixture count and lighting layout should be considered together. If a room needs both a central decorative fixture and supplemental ambient lighting, that needs to be identified early enough for the electrician to provide the appropriate wiring, switching and fixture locations.

Think of the central fixture as the room’s primary decorative overhead light and the recessed or disk lighting as the additional layer you can call on when you need more ambient light.

And importantly, they should be independently controlled. The homeowner should be able to choose the central fixture, the supplemental overhead lighting, or both depending on how the room is being used.

This is another detail that can affect the lighting budget. A floor plan showing one light symbol in the center of a room doesn’t necessarily tell us everything that room needs. That’s why we want to understand how you’ll live in the space before determining the lighting layout—and the budget required to accomplish it.

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Step 2: Decide What Level of Lighting You’re Envisioning

This is where a simple fixture count becomes much more useful.

Two homeowners can build similarly sized houses and have completely different expectations for the finished lighting.

For this rough exercise, think in three broad categories.

Level 1: Simple and Functional

You’re primarily concerned with getting attractive, appropriate fixtures into each location while keeping the overall budget controlled.

You may:

• Choose relatively simple fixtures in most rooms
• Have few large statement fixtures
• Prioritize function over decorative impact
• Select more modestly sized fixtures
• Spend more selectively in only one or two locations

Level 2: Quality and Design-Focused

Lighting is an intentional part of your home’s interior design.

You may:

• Want higher-quality decorative fixtures
• Have several statement fixtures
• Care about coordinating finishes and fixture families
• Want lighting that complements your cabinetry, flooring, furniture and architecture
• Have larger pendants or chandeliers
• Spend differently from room to room based on importance

Level 3: Custom and Statement-Oriented

Lighting is a significant part of the architecture and design of the home.

You may:

• Have large-scale chandeliers
• Have vaulted or two-story spaces
• Want premium materials and finishes
• Prefer more unique fixture designs
• Have oversized kitchen pendants
• Incorporate substantial decorative exterior lighting
• Use architectural, accent and specialty lighting extensively
• Want lighting to become a defining element of the finished home

These aren’t industry classifications.

They’re simply a useful way to think about your expectations before you start attaching dollars to the project.

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Step 3: Understand What Different Types of Fixtures Cost

Once you have a fixture count, don’t immediately multiply that number by an arbitrary average price.

Thirty fixture locations don’t tell you enough.

A home needing 30 mostly simple ceiling fixtures is a very different lighting budget from a home with 30 locations that include a large great-room chandelier, three oversized kitchen pendants, multiple bathroom vanity fixtures, ceiling fans and substantial exterior lanterns.

Before you can establish even a rough budget range, you need some understanding of what the different types of fixtures you’re considering actually cost.

Start by separating your fixture count into categories:

• Chandeliers
• Kitchen and island pendants
• Other pendants
• Flush and semi-flush ceiling fixtures
• Bathroom vanity fixtures
• Wall sconces
• Ceiling fans
• Exterior wall fixtures
• Exterior hanging fixtures
• Specialty or architectural fixtures

Then consider the size, quality, materials and design level you’re expecting within each category.

For example, don’t ask:

“What’s an average light fixture cost?”

Ask:

“What does the type and quality of chandelier appropriate for my great room typically cost?”

Then do the same for your kitchen pendants, bathroom lighting, bedroom fixtures, exterior lighting and the other fixture categories in your home.

Why This Produces a Better Estimate

Imagine two homes that each require 30 decorative fixtures.

The first homeowner wants relatively simple fixtures throughout a house that has 8 to 9-foot ceilings with one statement fixture over the dining table.

The second homeowner has:

• A large vaulted great room requiring a substantial chandelier
• Three oversized kitchen pendants
• A large dining-room chandelier
• Several decorative sconces
• Multiple ceiling fans
• Large exterior lanterns
• Higher-quality decorative fixtures throughout the primary living spaces

Simply multiplying 30 fixtures by the same arbitrary average could give both homeowners a similar preliminary budget even though their actual lighting needs and expectations are dramatically different.

That’s not particularly useful.

Build Your Rough Budget by Fixture Category Instead

For a better high-level estimate, create a simple inventory and research a realistic price range for each type of fixture you’re likely to need.

Your preliminary worksheet might include:

• Great-room chandelier: 1
• Dining chandelier: 1
• Kitchen pendants: 3
• Entry fixture: 1
• Bathroom vanity fixtures: 6
• Bedroom ceiling fixtures: 4
• Ceiling fans: 2
• Wall sconces: 4
• Exterior fixtures: 8
• Hall and utility fixtures: 3

Then determine a reasonable low-to-high planning range for each category based on the size, quality and style you’re actually considering.

Only after you’ve done that should you total the categories.

That gives you a much more meaningful preliminary range than assigning the same average dollar amount to every electrical box.

And This Is Where a Lighting Consultant Becomes Particularly Valuable

There’s an obvious challenge with this exercise:

How is a homeowner who’s never purchased an entire house of lighting supposed to know what realistic price ranges are?

You may not know what an appropriately scaled chandelier costs.

You may not know how fixture size affects price.

You may not know whether the pendants you’re picturing generally fall into one price range or another.

You may not realize how much the material, construction, finish, glass, light source, manufacturer or design can change the price of what appears to be the same basic type of fixture.

That’s exactly the kind of information a lighting consultant can help provide.

At Unique Lighting & Home Decor, we can look at your plans, talk about the style and quality you’re trying to achieve, understand which spaces matter most to you and help establish realistic planning ranges for the different types of lighting your home requires.

Fixture count tells us how many things you need to buy. Fixture type, scale, quality and design tell us what you may actually need to budget.

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Step 4: Identify Your Big-Budget Fixtures

Now look through the plan again.

Which fixtures are likely to cost considerably more than your average?

Circle or highlight them.

These may include:

• Great-room chandeliers
• Two-story foyer fixtures
• Large dining chandeliers
• Oversized kitchen pendants
• Large ceiling fans
• Primary-suite statement fixtures
• Large exterior lanterns
• Fixtures for vaulted spaces
• Custom or specialty fixtures

Suppose the preliminary range you researched for your great-room chandelier turns out to be considerably higher than you initially expected.

That’s okay.

The question becomes:

Where should the additional money come from?

Maybe you increase the overall budget.

Or perhaps you deliberately spend less on:

• Closets
• Laundry rooms
• Pantries
• Secondary bedrooms
• Utility spaces
• Secondary hallways

That’s the beginning of a strategic lighting budget rather than simply dividing money equally among electrical boxes.

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Step 5: Add the Lighting That Isn’t in Your Decorative Fixture Count

This is where the simple estimate starts becoming more complicated.

Your decorative fixture count may not include the other lighting necessary to make the home function properly.

Depending on your plans, you may also need to budget for:

• Recessed lighting
• Under-cabinet lighting
• Cabinet lighting
• Tape lighting
• Stair and step lighting
• Accent lighting
• Picture lighting
• Landscape lighting
• Specialty architectural lighting
• Bulbs
• Drivers and transformers
• Dimmers
• Lighting controls
• Smart lighting

The American Lighting Association recommends a layered approach to lighting rather than relying on a single type of fixture. ALA describes three primary layers, overall or ambient, task, and accent, and notes that the appropriate combination depends on the activities taking place in the space.

That’s one reason fixture counting is only a starting point.

Thirty decorative fixtures do not necessarily represent the entire lighting system.

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Step 6: Adjust for the Architecture of Your Home

Now ask yourself:

Is my house relatively straightforward to light, or does the architecture create special lighting requirements?

Your preliminary budget may need more room if the home includes:

• Vaulted ceilings
• Two-story spaces
• Large great rooms
• Oversized kitchen islands
• Long dining tables
• Large primary suites
• Timber construction
• Extensive stonework
• Open floor plans
• Large covered patios
• Expansive exterior elevations
• Architectural features you want illuminated

ALA’s guidance for open floor plans, for example, recommends considering architectural characteristics such as high ceilings, windows and the absence of interior walls, then developing ambient, task and accent layers for the different activities occurring within the space.

Architecture matters because scale matters.

A chandelier that looks substantial in a photograph may look tiny once it’s hanging from a 16-foot ceiling.

Your lighting budget needs to account for the home you’re actually building.

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Step 7: Ask Yourself These Questions Before Settling on a Number

If you answer these questions before meeting with us, we’ll have a much better starting point for developing your lighting budget.

About Your Project

• Are you building a new home or remodeling an existing one?
• What is the approximate square footage?
• How many bedrooms and bathrooms are there?
• What are the ceiling heights?
• Are there vaulted or two-story spaces?
• Do you have an open floor plan?
• Are there large covered outdoor living spaces?

About Your Fixture Count

• How many total decorative fixture locations are shown on the plans?
• How many chandeliers do you anticipate?
• How many pendants?
• How many sconces?
• How many bathroom vanity fixtures?
• How many ceiling fans?
• How many exterior decorative fixtures?
• Are recessed fixtures included elsewhere in the construction budget?

About Your Style

• What styles of lighting do you gravitate toward?
• Do you prefer simple fixtures or fixtures that make a statement?
• Are there particular finishes or materials you prefer?
• Do you want the lighting to coordinate closely throughout the home?
• Are there specific fixtures you’ve already found that you love?
• Have you saved inspiration photos that represent what you’re trying to achieve?

About Quality

• Is this a spec home, semi-custom home or custom home?
• What level of quality are you choosing for cabinetry, countertops, flooring and plumbing fixtures?
• Do you expect the lighting to reflect a similar quality level?
• Are you looking for fixtures you’ll be comfortable keeping for many years?
• Are unique or less commonly seen fixtures important to you?

About Your Priorities

• Which rooms matter most to you?
• Where do you want statement lighting?
• Which fixtures will be visible from multiple areas of the house?
• Where are you willing to spend more?
• Where would you be comfortable selecting something simpler?
• Is exterior curb appeal an important priority?

About Function

• How will each room actually be used?
• Where do you need dedicated task lighting?
• Do you want under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen?
• Do you need bedside or reading lighting?
• Would stair or low-level nighttime lighting be useful?
• Are there artwork, fireplaces, cabinetry or architectural features you want to highlight?
• Are there areas where recessed lighting alone may not provide the result you want?

About Controls and Technology

• Do you want dimming in your primary living spaces?
• Are you interested in smart lighting?
• Do you want automated lighting routines?
• Will exterior lighting be controlled automatically?
• Are specialty controls already included in the electrical budget?

About the Budget Itself

• What lighting allowance has your builder provided, if any?
• Exactly what does that allowance include?
• Does it include installation?
• Does it include recessed lighting?
• Does it include bulbs?
• Does it include controls?
• Does it include ceiling fans?
• Does it include exterior fixtures?
• Is the allowance flexible?
• Have you compared the allowance with the actual number of fixture locations?

If you don’t know the answers to all of those questions, that’s okay.

In fact, that’s part of the reason lighting consultants exist.

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Your Quick Lighting-Budget Formula

By this point, you should have a better understanding of two important things:

• How many fixtures your home may need
• What different types, sizes and quality levels of fixtures may realistically cost

Now you can begin developing a rough lighting budget range.

Instead of multiplying every fixture in the house by one average price, break your fixture list into categories and assign a preliminary range to each category based on the type of lighting you’re actually considering.

For example, your worksheet might look something like this:

• Great-room chandelier: 1 × appropriate price range
• Dining-room chandelier: 1 × appropriate price range
• Kitchen pendants: 3 × appropriate price range
• Entry fixture: 1 × appropriate price range
• Bathroom vanity fixtures: 6 × appropriate price range
• Bedroom ceiling fixtures: 4 × appropriate price range
• Ceiling fans: 2 × appropriate price range
• Wall sconces: 4 × appropriate price range
• Exterior fixtures: 8 × appropriate price range
• Hall, closet and utility fixtures: 3 × appropriate price range

Add the lower end of those ranges together to create one preliminary number. Then add the higher end to create another.

Now you have a rough decorative-lighting budget range that’s based on what your home may actually require, not an arbitrary average fixture price.

But You’re Not Finished Yet

Your decorative fixtures may only represent part of the lighting budget.

Before considering your estimate complete, determine whether you also need to account for:

• Recessed can or disk lighting
• Supplemental overhead ambient lighting
• Under-cabinet lighting
• Cabinet lighting
• Stair and step lighting
• Tape lighting
• Accent or architectural lighting
• Landscape lighting
• Bulbs and other light sources
• Drivers and transformers
• Dimmers and controls
• Smart lighting
• Installation and electrical labor, depending on what your allowance includes

Then look at the resulting range and ask some bigger questions:

• Does this lighting plan reflect how we actually live?
• Have we accounted for both decorative and functional lighting?
• Are our major fixtures appropriately scaled for the rooms?
• Are there rooms where we need more than one layer of overhead lighting?
• Have we identified the fixtures that deserve a larger investment?
• Are there secondary spaces where simpler fixtures could help control the total budget?
• Does the quality of lighting we’re budgeting for align with the quality of the home we’re building?
• Have we included exterior lighting and other fixtures that are easy to overlook?
• Do we understand exactly what our builder’s lighting allowance includes?
• Is there enough flexibility in the budget if our selections change?

That’s Your Rough Range Not Necessarily Your Final Budget

This exercise isn’t intended to produce an exact lighting budget.

It’s intended to get you closer to reality and identify if a budget thrown together by a contractor will meet your specific needs.

And you may reach a point where you’re thinking:

“I don’t know what an appropriate price range is for a great-room chandelier.”

Or:

“I don’t know what size pendants this island needs, so how am I supposed to know what they’ll cost?”

That’s precisely where professional lighting knowledge becomes valuable.

A homeowner can count electrical boxes. What they may not know is what type of fixture belongs there, if the electrical box count is accurate for the needs, what size a fixture should be, what level of quality fits their expectations, what realistic options cost, or whether another layer of lighting should have been planned for that space in the first place.

At Unique Lighting & Home Decor, our lighting consultants can help take that preliminary inventory and turn it into something much more useful. We consider the actual home, architecture, fixture types, scale, lighting layers, style, quality expectations, priorities and how you intend to live in the space.

A rough budget helps you start planning. A strategic lighting budget helps you plan the right lighting and understand what it will realistically take to achieve it.

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Why We Don’t Recommend a Universal Percentage of Your Home’s Cost

You may encounter rules online suggesting that lighting should represent a particular percentage of a construction budget.

We don’t think that’s precise enough to be particularly useful.

Imagine two homes with similar construction costs.

One has:

• Standard ceiling heights
• Relatively few decorative fixtures
• A smaller kitchen island
• Minimal exterior decorative lighting
• Simple fixture preferences

The other has:

• A vaulted great room
• A two-story foyer
• A 12-foot kitchen island
• Several statement chandeliers
• Extensive sconces
• Multiple ceiling fans
• Large exterior fixtures
• Under-cabinet and accent lighting
• Higher-end fixture preferences

Why should those homes have identical lighting budgets simply because their construction costs are similar?

They shouldn’t.

The lighting budget should respond to the lighting plan.

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A Rough Estimate Is Useful. A Strategic Lighting Budget Is Better.

The method we’ve outlined here can help you establish a high-level planning range.

That’s useful when you’re:

• Establishing your overall construction budget
• Comparing allowances
• Preparing for a new build
• Planning a remodel
• Trying to determine whether the number you’ve been given seems realistic

But there’s a significant difference between a rough lighting estimate and a strategic lighting budget.

A rough estimate counts fixtures and applies assumptions.

A strategic budget considers how all the pieces work together.

That’s where working with a lighting consultant becomes valuable.

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Let Us Help You Turn the Estimate Into a Real Lighting Budget

At Unique Lighting & Home Decor, we’d rather meet with you early in the project than wait until every other decision has been made and you’re trying to fit an entire house into whatever remains of the lighting allowance.

Bring us:

• Your floor plans
• Your electrical plans, if available
• Ceiling heights
• Room dimensions
• Kitchen-island dimensions
• Cabinet and finish selections
• Inspiration photos
• Fixtures you’ve already found and like
• Your preliminary fixture count
• Your builder’s lighting allowance, if one exists
• Your rough budget range

Then we can start asking better questions.

We’ll look at your needs, space, preferences, priorities and expectations and help you develop a lighting budget that’s more strategic and appropriate for the project.

The American Lighting Association specifically recommends working with trained lighting-showroom professionals during the planning process. Its planning guide says showroom professionals can work with the customer’s budget and design vision, while ALA describes member showrooms as providing trained expertise to help homeowners identify appropriate lighting solutions.

You don’t need to walk into our showroom already knowing exactly how much you should spend.

Helping you figure that out is part of what a lighting consultant can do.

A $5,000 budget may be perfectly appropriate for one project and completely unrealistic for another.

The right question isn’t:

“What does everyone else spend on lighting?”

It’s:

“What lighting budget makes sense for the home I’m actually building?”

That’s the question we’re here to help you answer.

Unique Lighting & Home Decor
926 S. Arizona St.
Butte, MT 59701
406.565.4037
ButteLighting.com

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References

American Lighting Association. (2017). Lighting planning guide. ALA recommends assessing the space, wants and needs and working with a showroom consultant to develop a lighting solution; the guide notes that showroom professionals can work with a customer’s budget and design vision.

American Lighting Association. (n.d.). Lighting tips from pros. ALA describes effective layered lighting as incorporating overall, task and accent lighting appropriate to the activities taking place in a room.

American Lighting Association. (n.d.). Lighting in layers. ALA recommends incorporating layers of lighting to create spaces that are both functional and stylish.

American Lighting Association. (2019). Lighting tips for open floor plans. ALA recommends considering architecture, high ceilings, windows and room functions when developing ambient, task and accent lighting for open-concept spaces.

American Lighting Association. (n.d.). Find your local lighting store. ALA describes member showrooms as offering quality lighting, ceiling-fan and control products along with professionally trained personnel who can help consumers identify lighting solutions and styles.