MSN™

You will never see what you left on the plan.

A lighting plan looks finished. That is the problem with it. Here are the eight moves I would make on yours, while they are all still free to make. The Million Dollar Lighting Blueprint, free.

Free · takes about 30 seconds

A kitchen in one of my own builds: the stone splashback washed with light, a strip under the island bench edge, and no grid of downlights on the ceiling

My own build · Wimbledon

Free · no email needed

Move three. Light the objects, not the room.

Where there is an artwork wall, you need light there. Where there is stone, wash it. The room is lit as a consequence of the objects being lit, which is the opposite of how a grid of downlights works.

It decides where the points go on the drawing, so it is one of the early ones. Open your plan and ask what each light is actually pointed at. Most of them are pointed at nothing.

“I don’t just light rooms for the sake of lighting rooms. I light objects.”Manraj Nijjar

That is one move of eight. The other seven, the five tells that say the lighting was an afterthought, and the one that no fitting can fix, are in the blueprint.

Where should I send it?

That email does not look right.

Free. Two pages. Takes about 30 seconds to read.

What is in it

1
Five tells that the lighting was an afterthought
Read them against your own plan. A tick is a fault, not a pass.
2
Eight moves, in the order they get decided
Every one of them a position on a drawing, not a product to shop for.
3
The one tell that no move on the page can fix
It is decided by when you think about the lighting, not by what you buy.

I am Manraj Nijjar. I develop some of the most iconic homes in Melbourne, in the best streets, and my projects have been filmed for Dream Homes Revealed. Every one of these is from my own builds, not a showroom. This is the take you would get if you handed me your plan.