Increasing numbers of people are choosing to work from their homes.  With this trend comes a need for higher levels of ambient lighting without reflected glare on computer screens.  Portable compact fluorescent lamps and task lights provide a comfortable work environment without a high capital investment or costly electricity bills.

The light-colored surfaces in this home office allow the owner to use an uplight for general lighting.  The compact fluorescent lamp provides general lighting in the space, without causing significant reflected glare or strong shadows on surfaces.  Two intermediate switching levels allow the occupant to turn on only one or two of the three lamps when lower light levels are desired.

The other luminaire, a compact florescent task light has an articulated arm which allows the head to be located below eye level to minimize direct glare.  A small-cell parabolic louver provides additional glare control and a sharp cutoff to its directed light.  This allows the luminaire to aim light on desktop and keyboard, without washing the screen with light.

When creating or re-designing your home office, take the following objectives into consideration:

• Create comfortable and flexible lighting levels
• Achieve good color rendering of skin tones and furniture finishes
• Blend with the contemporary appearance of the space
• Minimize flicker
• Minimize direct and reflected glare for the worker
• Minimize electricity use and heat produced by lighting
• Avoid fixture installation costs