Lighting is a major component of good interior design. Good lighting design has an elusive quality. When you walk into an effectively lighted room, your eyes sense visual comfort, yet you'll rarely remark, "What fantastic lighting!"

Home lighting should be varied and dramatic. Fixtures should be connected to dimmer switches that can create a variety of effects.

An essential in lighting design is common sense. The best lighting designer is a problem-solver, who determines where light is desired and needed, and installs it with economy and flair. You can do the same, using three types of lighting: task, accent and ambient or general lighting. Task lighting illuminates a specific area where an activity such as reading, sewing, or food preparation takes place. It is often achieved using individual fixtures that direct light onto a work surface.

Accent lighting is similar to task lighting in that it consists largely of directional light. Primarily decorative, accent lighting is used to focus attention on artwork and to set a mood.

Ambient lighting fills in the undefined areas of a room with a soft level of light enough to watch television by or to allow one to navigate safely about a room. This type of lighting usually comes from indirect fixtures that provide a diffused spread of illumination.

The first step toward improving your lighting involves careful consideration of the design and layout of your rooms, and the types of activities that take place in each. If you're planning new lighting, you might want to draw a basic room plan that will help you determine where to place your fixtures and where you'll want new outlets or wall switches. Once you have some ideas, you might want to contact a lighting consultant, either for advice or for a complete plan, depending on your project and your budget.

Some architects and interior designers are lighting specialists. Consultants usually belong to the Illuminating Engineering Society. Light fixture stores and electrical supply houses dealing in lighting fixtures might have in-house consultants.

There are general lighting criteria that should be employed when designing lighting systems. For example, general lighting in living and sleeping areas should be equal to one watt of incandescent light for each square foot of space. Therefore, if a bedroom measures 10 by 12 feet, or 120 square feet, it should have general lighting of about 120 watts.

The "one-watt-per-foot" rule should be doubled for a kitchen or workshop. Energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs require less wattage than conventional incandescent lighting. The per-foot minimum drops to about one-third watt for living areas and three-quarters of a watt for kitchens. Reflector light bulbs also are energy savers. A 50-watt "R" bulb is as bright as a 100-watt "A" bulb. "A" is the code for a standard incandescent light bulb.

The recent rage has been accent lighting which consists primarily of recessed fixtures and surface-mount track lighting. Both types offer countless possibilities with the various styles and trim accessories that are available.

Recess and track lighting can illuminate an area, wash a wall or throw a defined beam of light to a piece of art across a room. They can be used as stand-alones or in combination with other types of lighting, They should, however, be installed at a distance of 12 to 24 inches from the wall they light.

Of the three types, task lighting is the least used, yet one of the most important. One common location for it is within a range hood just above a cooktop. And, usually that's where it stops in most homes.

Safety-conscious folks are finding that task lighting installed at the underside of upper cabinets in the kitchen, for example, can make working conditions increasingly easier and can eliminate eye strain.

Although task lighting most often is used in the kitchen, it also can be employed in the laundry room, bathroom, craft area and workshop. The most popular style of task lights are thin, narrow rectangular fixtures that have their own switch. While fluorescent task lighting has been the standard for many years, quartz-halogen task lighting is becoming popular.