The amount of lights in the average British home has doubled in the last decade, despite homes now being smaller than ever.
The number of lights in the home has leapt from just 15 light sources in 2004 to more than 30 today as people add more spotlights, wall lights, pendants and lamps to their homes, according to a survey by retailer Homebase.
The DIY retailer speculated that rapidly shrinking living spaces meant people are choosing to accessorise their homes with decorative lighting which is both functional and fashionable, with trend-led lamps doubling up as ornaments.
Pamela Collard, lighting buyer for Homebase, said: “People are certainly being smarter with their lighting and noticing what a huge impact lighting can make to how a room both looks and feels.”
Updating lighting was found to be most popular with renters, especially those who want to make their home their own but are unable to make more permanent changes by redecorating or even hanging pictures.
The fact that there are more lights in the average home since the emergence of the LED would also appear to chime with the Jevon’s Paradox theory – a proposition by the English economist William Stanley Jevons – which argued that the more energy efficient a technology becomes, the more it leads to increased fuel use because we simply find new applications for the more refined technology.
