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Simplifying Life Through Technology
SoundVision LLC is a lifestyle technology company located in Mooresville, North Carolina. We interview vendors, clients and staff with the purpose of demystifying the capabilties of new technologies for your home or business and sometimes highlighting local content that is important to our community.
Simplifying Life Through Technology
Design Perspectives: Lighting Solutions
On this episode of “Design Perspectives,” Mark, Andrew, and Jenny Pippin sit down to discuss Lighting Solutions.
Great lighting isn’t just about seeing—it’s about experiencing home in a whole new way. In this episode of Design Perspectives, renowned designer Jenny Pippin shares her expertise on how thoughtful lighting choices can transform a space, proving that a well-lit home is one that enhances comfort, functionality, and overall well-being.
From strategic window placement that maximizes natural light to cutting-edge innovations like passive solar heating and circadian lighting, Jenny explores how these elements align with our natural rhythms to create healthier, more inviting environments. As homeowners spend more time indoors, these solutions are becoming essential in designing spaces that feel both beautiful and intuitive.
We also dive into the evolution of lighting design, moving beyond traditional can lighting to the sleek appeal of linear lighting solutions. Jenny discusses the importance of layered lighting—especially in kitchens, where task and ambient lighting must work in harmony—and the growing impact of warm dim technology, which adjusts color temperatures seamlessly to enhance comfort and aesthetics.
And of course, lighting isn’t just for the indoors. We take a look at how exterior lighting boosts curb appeal, adds security, and creates an inviting atmosphere for homeowners and guests alike. Whether it’s a softly lit porch or a well-designed pathway, outdoor illumination is a powerful tool in shaping a home’s first impression.
As technology continues to shape the way we design and experience our homes, lighting remains at the forefront of innovation. Join us as Jenny Pippin sheds light on the latest trends and practical strategies, ensuring your home is not only well-lit but thoughtfully designed to enrich your daily life.
To learn more about Pippin Home Designs:
https://www.pippinhomedesigns.com/
Check out Pippin Home Designs on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/pippinhomedesigns/
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Contact Us Today: (704) 696-2792 Ext. 1 | Info@svavnc.com | soundvisionlkn.com
Welcome back, Jenny. We're excited to continue our little podcast series with you.
Speaker 2:I'm loving this series. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:It's been great.
Speaker 3:I hope our listeners are getting stuff out of this too.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think so. I certainly am.
Speaker 3:Well, good, fantastic. So we've talked about a couple of different things in the most recent podcast. We've talked about theaters, and we just had one where we talked about golf simulators, and now we're going to talk about something that affects everybody every day in your designs. Well, just in general, and that is light.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Light is so important is light.
Speaker 3:Absolutely light is so important. So when you design, let's start on the top level. When you design the home uh, how you said it's so important kind of take it from there how. How do you design light into the home?
Speaker 2:how important is it well, starting with windows, because most of our clients, again, are on a view, so we have a lot of windows onto the view but also to bring in natural light, and we think about where that natural light is coming from, where the sun rises and sets on the property, and where these spaces are going to be placed throughout the day. Are they morning people? Are they evening people? Are they something in between? You know, what rooms do they want when this, where the sun rises, and what rooms do they want where the sun sets? And also knowing that people are drawn to natural light, and then the rooms that have more windows in them are the rooms that people want to be in. So if you have windows on two walls, that's the one of the more attractive rooms. If you have windows on three walls, that's the room that everybody wants to be in isn't that crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I have, because I I can't afford a house's design with like light coming from those. What? What is the more popular, just overall, sunrise or sunset?
Speaker 2:I would say sunrise for the kitchen, really your morning rooms, that is interesting.
Speaker 3:My wife and I had a discussion about this the other day. Which, if you could only have one, would you rather see? The sunrise or the sunset?
Speaker 2:well, I mean, people want to see the sunset oh, I'm sure it's very close yes definitely, I was.
Speaker 3:Just I was curious from a professional designer what like, yeah, I would like both, but I have to have this. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I would say, if they're on the side that would give them the sunset, then they'd certainly want to focus on that, but often their main view is on the north, so they're not going to see it.
Speaker 3:Why is that?
Speaker 2:Well, it depends on what side of the lake they're on. Okay, sure, so their view side might be facing north, like our lake house that we used to have faced north on our view side and then our street side faced south.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so we put glass doors in our garage, which also faced south, and so we had a passive, solar heated garage.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:See, this is the level of design you get with Jenny. Yes, passive solar heated garage Okay, that's pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 2:And so and it's passive, solar heated because there was a concrete floor to absorb the heat. Now, the other rooms that face south, we didn't have a concrete floor in because they were in, you know, the living space and you don't want it and we had a basement, so we didn't have a first floor with a concrete slab.
Speaker 3:So that was sun tempered spaces so let's get back to the if, the if the room has three glass walls, that's where everybody wants to be. Why, why is that?
Speaker 2:We're all naturally drawn to natural light, and and lighting is so important for us in terms of how our body functions, too, because of the circadian rhythm.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and and and actually tell us more about circadian rhythm. Just, I know it's been a buzzword in our industry. It's been a buzzword for four, three, four, five years now, but not everybody knows what that is, what is?
Speaker 2:that. Well, it's. It's how your body is um, relating to the time of day, with the sunrise and the sunset, and being able to get good sleep, and and regulating your body to getting that good sleep based on your exposure to natural light and or artificial light that can simulate natural light yeah, that's.
Speaker 3:That's something that we've.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's been since the dawn of time it goes back to, goes back to the, you know, dinosaurs, and that that's the thing. But essentially our bodies are programmed yes, they are by the sun and and as it travels from the morning when it you get up. That's why you tend to get up and you're a little more, a little lazy as you get up and because it's it's a nice warm glow as it's coming up in a gradual, yep, gradual, and then as the sun peaks, you get a real kind of blue white, a task lighting, we call it in our industry More energized.
Speaker 3:Yep energized during the day and then, as it goes back down at night, you tend to Wind down, wind down and that's that sunset, that warm glow again.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:But we've been doing lighting control for forever, lighting control just being defined as dimming a light, turning it on, you know, with a timer, or the time of day or occupancy in a room or whatever. But in the last couple years we've really started to do like temperature too as part of that control that will mimic or mirror what the sun's doing, so that we have that same feeling inside when we don't have the natural light and and that's really important, because so many of us are inside more than we're- outside right and having that opportunity to be exposed to lighting that mimics.
Speaker 3:That then helps to keep your body regulated the way it's supposed to be and are people bringing up the health benefits of that, because that's been a big topic is, when we don't have natural light, you literally affect your health.
Speaker 2:It does affect your health yeah, and you're not sleeping well, so you're not getting your body rejuvenated the way it's supposed to. When you're getting good sleep, yeah, so having the opportunity to incorporate that is fabulous.
Speaker 3:Okay, so when we have beautiful natural light, it's it's not as important, but not every space has that, so you said so in that case, what do you do different in designing light? We we make the joke of four cans and a fan, when you, when you go into a room and you see that same thing yes that is probably not what you do.
Speaker 2:And no, but that's what a lot of people ask for. But I see, really, it's still recess lights, not necessarily just four cans in a pan, because they want all the other bells and whistles too.
Speaker 1:Right but.
Speaker 2:I find that they're not even turning those cans on.
Speaker 3:That is and it's so like hard and harsh. We have those cans on. That is, and it's so like hard and harsh we have, if you come, and we would invite anyone that's listening to come into our experience center and we have a whole display on light and and we have a kind of a little skit that we go through and when we're done we we actually have the four cans in the room, so we we take all the layers and we show you kind of how to do all the different.
Speaker 3:You know color all everything. And then at the end we we turn that layers and we show you kind of how to do all the different. You know color everything. And then at the end we turn that off and put the four cans on and oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:That's when you see people's reaction and then they're like OK, now I really understand what you mean.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's why they never turn them on, because they aren't what is natural, right and what makes you feel good, and it's important to feel good in a space and indirect lighting feels much more comfortable to be around Tell us more about that.
Speaker 3:How do you design indirect lighting?
Speaker 2:Well, for instance, tray ceilings, Not the old-timey kind, but just a stepped kind of tray, so that you can do some indirect lighting, or you can do some wall sconces, or you can do some unique creative things. Like you know, we've done some in a house recently in the baseboard.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and step lighting, that sort of thing yeah.
Speaker 3:The buzzword nowadays is linear.
Speaker 1:Linear lighting it used to be rope lighting.
Speaker 3:We don't say rope lighting anymore, but it's linear and there's layers of it. So, like in our kitchen, which I love this we'd have the toe kick, yep. Then we have kind of under cabinet, then we have above in the molding as well. So you have these layers and, like at night, you even need the, the candle lights. You don't? I mean, you don't need it no, you just need task lighting.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's the most important right like if you're cutting something, you need down on a on a kitchen counter or something like that. The ambient lighting is more important. You know, in general, so do you have?
Speaker 3:do customers ask about? Are they asking about this now? Are they educated to this now or are you educating them?
Speaker 2:I think it's more me educating them. I mean, they're seeing cool pictures, you know, and saying hey, this looks really cool, but not really knowing enough about it to ask about it.
Speaker 3:Sure, right, sure, yeah, we find the same thing. Before we had the Experience Center center, it was very difficult to sell uh lighting. The control they kind of got, yeah, but but the actual lighting fixtures and what it can do, yeah, I mean we haven't even touched on color yet, but they didn't quite get that. Um, once they have it. I was listening to another podcast and they were talking about how our industries changed. It used to be we would lead, lead with audio and theaters and stuff, and now we lead with, um, motorized window treatments and light and and the uh. The person I was listening to said you know, when someone has a uh, a faulty automation system or something, somebody you know not not necessarily the best uh integrator in the world put it in and they had problems and they don't really want to go back to that. But nobody uh goes like when they, when they have a properly done lighting system, nobody goes back on that. They're adding to that. They're like, oh, wow, we should have done that everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah yeah, it makes such a big difference. I mean, especially if you're in a, an existing home that we didn't design, that doesn't have a lot of natural light access, it's even more important absolutely to get the, the artificial light, the way it needs to be yeah, what about the actual fixtures?
Speaker 3:are you seeing? You know, I guess the the classic one has either been the five or the six inch cans or whatever that have been you know forever. Are you starting to see different? Um, you know smaller aperture stuff? Yes, mud in different trim types, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more hidden things too that are less obtrusive on the ceiling and on the walls and in the cabinetry yeah and are you actually I'll use the word designing?
Speaker 3:are you doing like a lighting plan for people?
Speaker 2:I do a lighting layout. Okay, I'm not actually choosing the fixtures okay, okay because we are working with an interior designer on most of the projects that we work on with our clients.
Speaker 3:They have a whole team and typically is the interior designer choosing those fixtures so we we actually have, just so you know, we have two um licensed uh lighting designers on staff and we actually also work with two different national lighting design teams as well that's awesome if we I would say 80 to 90 percent of we can do them.
Speaker 3:but every once in a while we'll have something tricky or strange that we need some help with and we offer that service to you as a designer to architects that may be listening. Like we offer that service free, like we'll actually do the design, give it to you and then you know you can present it to your customer or whatever.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 3:And we do have a fixture take. We do the fixtures also. We actually sell a fairly wide fixture selection. They are the primary fixtures. We don't do decorative, we don't do sconces, we don't do chandeliers, we don't do any of that sort of.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 3:It's kind of the 80-20 rule.
Speaker 2:More integrated lighting, I would say.
Speaker 3:Have you seen warm dim? Do you know about warm dim?
Speaker 3:I know about it, I haven't actually seen it oh okay, so warm, dim is kind of the um, the light version of total control. But what's cool about it, is it? It ranges from somewhere in like the 3500 kelvin temperature, which is, which is kind of a blue, white, taskish, down to like 1800, which is more of the warm candlelight amber glow. And it does that as you dim it down. So when you're, when you, you know the brighter that the light is, the whiter it. You know the brighter that the light is, the whiter it gets and the dimmer the light is, the warmer it gets, or amber, more amber. So at night, as you're dimming it down, you can, you know it'll, it'll make you more into that relaxed mood yeah and during the day if you're.
Speaker 3:You know, if you dim it up, you get more of that task lighting. The really cool thing about that is you can literally we were just talking with zach about this the other day, it's on a different podcast you can literally replace these in like five minutes. The can lights that you have in your kitchen right now or your living room right now, assuming you can get to them. You literally unscrew, unplug, plug, screw. You don't have to do anything else and you can replace what you have now.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic yeah.
Speaker 1:It's really simple. As someone who is not handy at all, I even thought, okay, maybe.
Speaker 3:I can do that.
Speaker 2:No tools other than a ladder required. Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:What about outdoor lighting? How important is that to your clients? Is that something they usually inquire about, or is that something that you bring up in the design process?
Speaker 2:Yes, because outdoor lighting goes right along with all this outdoor living space that we're creating too. Every house has lots of outdoor living. So how do we light? That is a really important thing. You know we've got big covered porches, do we like? That is a really important thing. You know we've got big covered porches. A lot of them have the ceiling heaters and the fireplaces and the outdoor tvs and sure. And then you've got the swimming pool and the hot tub and the walk to the dock and all of those things have to be figured out. How are we going to light these spaces? And the outdoor stairs have to be lighted and light them in a way that it's not again harsh. That it's, you know, creating the ambience that they want.
Speaker 3:I, I drive around here, my wife and I drive around, we're house geeks too and we'll kind of look and it's incredible how many beautiful homes are in our area that have no lighting in the front and them, and as the sun goes down in front they become so drab and so like dead looking, if that's the right way to say it. And then you'll drive down the street and there's one that maybe not even lit that well and but it just stands out immediately.
Speaker 3:And then you see some that are so elegant. I mean it is incredible the difference that that makes. That's quite the wow. It is quite the wow, yeah, and if you're, you know, if you're a nefarious type, that's the one house you don't want to go to, exactly. You see, the 12 that are pitch black, as you're driving down the street and then you see this one that's lit up. Yeah, it's beautiful. Like well, well, yeah, they're probably gonna see me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but come up to that one, keep driving, that's right so I'm assuming that because you you're talking about the back living space, but you also absolutely the front, yeah, because you know you want to uplight your landscaping, you want to uplight the house.
Speaker 3:You want to make everything look like the, the wow that you've asked for yes not only during the day, when you can see it, but at night as well and we we have become, um, pretty much experts on doing that, like we do a lot of outdoor lighting. That's cool. In fact, you were talking about the stairs. We just did this incredible the pool was like a million bucks and the lighting that's in the stairs is crazy. And we had to. Unfortunately, the contractor was a little challenging to work with and we had to kind of come up with some unique solutions and our guys did a great job and, uh, in lighting the stairs and that kind of thing, but fire features and all kinds of stuff, wow really cool.
Speaker 2:That's great. I love that, yeah, and clients love that you know, and that's that. That outdoor lighting is one of the things that's going to help if somebody's trying to sell their house.
Speaker 1:That will help oh my gosh, absolutely oh my gosh house, absolutely, it does well, that's something you notice when you look on your website all of your homes. What's the first thing you see? Oh my god, these beautifully lit at night houses. They all look incredible. And what's the first thing you see? Oh my God, these beautifully lit at night houses. They all look incredible. And you can see the different areas. You highlight the pathways, you said the accents, and it is just a game changer. It draws you in it does Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And why would you want to sell? That's right If you live there that's right.
Speaker 3:You lucky dogs if you live there. That's right, you lucky dogs. I would actually go as far as to say that lighting is the most important thing we do. You know, I think that if a customer might rank security out of it, might rank Wi-Fi ahead of it, you know, on a daily basis, but I don't know daily basis, but I don't know lighting is. There's so many components to it the health, the. You know the, the task, the making the space feel inviting, just all of that that's the thing is, how does it feel?
Speaker 2:it makes it feel fabulous it's.
Speaker 3:It's interesting that you, you know, we there's, there's two senses that we're bringing together like it's we're talking about, like it's we're talking about lights. Obviously, that's seeing, but it's really how does it feel? It's not how does it look, it's how does it feel and that's, and that's what we're we're going for. It sounds like that's what you're going for as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and our designs is all about how our clients feel in their home. Yes, it is, and we want them to feel great.
Speaker 3:And for a lifetime, exactly. So when you have a new customer and you're you're coming up with this design and I gotta imagine you've done so many that at some point you go oh, this is like the jones's house oh, yeah, this is like this oh, I'm gonna build another smith's house.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know exactly the house you should go see, because you're talking about something I've already done yes, yeah, not not the whole house, necessarily, but certain areas, and I'll pull one up yeah, you're talking about something I've already done. Yes, yeah, not not the whole house, necessarily, but certain areas, and I'll pull one up yeah, you're talking about something similar to this, and they can either say yes or no, you know. But I have a big example. You know, a big library of examples?
Speaker 2:yeah, a gallery for them to look through. That as we're talking through. Oh yeah, this house, or this house or this house, might have some of those features that you think you're wanting to incorporate in your home.
Speaker 3:Do you ever take customers to other customers' homes?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I do have clients that will allow us to bring them there and you know they'll give the tour even without me.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, oh wow.
Speaker 1:I think that shows a testament to your relationship and how you conduct yourself in business, yes, a lot of our clients become good friends. Yeah, and that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, salespeople, that's the best way to close a sale too. Let someone do it for you. Well, that's very cool. Anything else that you'd like to talk about with the light in specific?
Speaker 2:I would say that lighting for somebody who hasn't really thought much about it. It's going to be one of the key features you want to talk with your designer about and incorporate it early on, because you want to design things integrated in a way that makes sense with the house and that looks good in the end, because you want it to look well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm glad, I'm really glad you brought that up, anybody that's listening to this podcast. If you're going to be building a home, you need to educate yourself on what lighting, what changes have happened, because you're going to see it eventually and you better see it before you build and before you design. And and Jenny, you're exactly right Like getting in super early. Yeah, we're big advocates for that. You know, to integrate all this stuff, not only to make it work, but to make it look the way you want it to look. You know whether you're hopefully, you're using Jennyny as your designer, but if you're using an architect or something like, they need to know that, uh, at the very beginning early on in the process, because that that you know influences different ways that you design spaces.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, that's a great point. Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. So, um, so, that's, that is very important. That's a great takeaway from this. Uh, you know, and if you don't want to do it, at least you see it and you go okay, that's cool, but that's not me. So all right that's fine, but you educate yourself. That's a big one.
Speaker 3:Know your options I will throw out just because we're talking about that. This is a bit of a tangent, but we uh, we've talked about, um, motorized window treatments, and that's also important in the beginning, especially if you want pockets or you, you want them hidden, you don't want to see rolls, your rollers. That's really important because there is a lot of design that goes into that, especially with window headers, and it's not easy to just slap it up there later, right?
Speaker 2:And and that also ties into lighting, because that's um, you know, dealing with your natural light- Exactly, they really go hand in hand, they really do.
Speaker 3:And with the automation platforms that we have, we incorporate those, we integrate those together. That's a major component. The shading and the lighting work in tandem.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's that's very, very important, so we definitely take that into account. Yeah, that's fantastic and you know it really adds to that that ambiance and the feel in the home too to have those two things incorporated and know that you can operate it from your cell phone if you want that, yeah, and I don't know.
Speaker 3:I don't know where we are on time here, andrew, because we haven't. We are just fine, we're just fine. So I did. We were talking offline about this before and I think we should bring it up here. Jenny was saying that a lot of their customers have asked in the past they they love lighting control. They want to go on their cell phone or they want to go on their ipad or they want to go on their iPad or their computer or whatever tablet, whatever, and control the light, which is fine. We've been doing that forever and we certainly have solutions for that. But I want to make sure that customers can understand that that's only one way to do it, and I was mentioning that I have lighting control throughout my whole house.
Speaker 3:It's one of my favorite things and I literally only touch like two or three buttons ever. I touch the cooking button. We have a in our kitchen, we have a key pad and there's a, there's a cooking, there's a day and a night. I touch those for different things because they have different intensities and stuff, and that's kind of it. Um, there's one light that I turn on every once in a while when I go to feed the dogs. Everything else happens. What do I mean by that? We walk into a room and a motion detector senses our presence and so the light comes on.
Speaker 3:I mentioned the going down to the basement, and we have proximity sensors. So when you open the door to go down the stairs I never touched the light, I just walked downstairs the light comes on and then minute later it goes back off. Uh, and I mentioned the one about in the bathroom. My all time favorite is at night, middle of the night, you're going to the bathroom. Last thing you want to do is first find the switch, but then you turn it on and it's like the sun in there, right? So we just have a proximity sensor go in. Light comes on at like 10, like really, really dim, just so you can see. You go to the bathroom and you don't even turn it off. You just walk back out and go to bed and it goes off on its own it goes off on its own.
Speaker 3:That's automation, like really working with you and making your life easier yep, making your life easier, yeah, so that's the kind of things that we like to incorporate in there. Last but not least, we we were also talking about geofencing a little bit more advanced, but geofencing is a uh like a bubble and it goes around. Let's just say it goes around your house. It can be anywhere, but it goes around your house. So those of you that drive like a, you know an Audi, a Mercedes, a BMW as your Lexus, you know cars like those. You get towards your house and your car tells you hey, do you want to put your garage door up? You know it pops up right on your screen in your car. How does it do that? Well, you put in your home in the GPS inside the car, so the car knows where your home is, and you programmed your garage door opener inside your car, or somebody did so. Now it, you know it knows these two things and so it knows you're getting close to your house and you probably want to put the garage door up. That's kind of cool.
Speaker 3:That's geofencing happening. But what if it did more than that? Like with with an automation system, you can do the same geofencing through your phone, say, for example. And when you get near your house, your lights could come on the drapes or the, the window treatments could move up or down, the temperature could change, like anything, and, by the way, that's only based on time of day too. So the lights only come on if it's night, you know, not during the day. Yeah, the, the intelligence, is there to do that. So the lifestyle is you. You don't have to do any of that.
Speaker 3:It's just less, you know um. It's less for you to do, less stress in your life, and that's what we, that's what we try to do Simplifying your life through technology.
Speaker 1:Simplifying your life through technology.
Speaker 3:Very smart.
Speaker 1:And, as Jenny says, she believes your home should nurture your soul and enrich your everyday existence, and I think that just goes in hand in hand with convenience and lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Absolutely it does. I love that. Thank you guys.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you again for joining us, jenny. We hope to have you back very soon. I look forward to it, us too.
Speaker 2:And Merry Christmas. Yes, Merry Christmas. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:We're recording this right before Christmas, that's right. Merry Christmas and happy holidays. Happy holidays.
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