3 Tips To Boost Your Home Design With Energy-Efficient Led Bulbs

(BPT) - If you dream about transforming your home on a budget, chances are you've considered new paint, area rugs or window treatments. While these updates can refresh rooms without breaking the bank, there's a crucial and often overlooked design element that can truly transform a room - lighting.

The good news is, improving lighting doesn't necessarily require all new fixtures. Simply swapping from standard to LED lightbulbs can upgrade the ambience of your home with stylish features and energy saving benefits that can have a dramatic impact on your energy bill - and the look and feel of your overall space.

Lighting can alter the appearance of paint, furnishings and decor, becoming even more important as seasons change. Here are a few bright ideas to revamp rooms using the power of the humble lightbulb:

1. Go LED for cost savings - Select LED bulbs reduce household energy costs over the course of their lifetime. An EcoSmart lightbulb saves $0.55-$2.65 on average per bulb over its 25,000-hour lifetime. New LED lightbulbs offer the latest innovation in lighting technology and are available in a wide assortment of wattage outputs, colors, base options and shapes.

2. Consider function - LEDs are directional light sources, enabling them to cast light and use energy more efficiently. When choosing your ideal lightbulb style, consider the room's purpose. A kitchen needs to be bright to aid food preparation, but your bedroom should be a restful, cozy oasis. For a living room, you may want to switch from a game-and-puzzle center with focused lighting to a darkened home theater for movie night.

3. Choose "color temperature" to change the mood - Today's LED bulbs offer a wide variety of color temperatures, empowering you to make the room feel warmer and cozier, or cooler and crisper.

Contrary to what you may think, the hotter the light source (measured in Kelvins), the cooler the "color temperature," so lights with temperatures at 5,000 or more Kelvins look brighter, crisper and more bluish. However, light temperatures around 2,500-3,000 Kelvins emit an amber, yellowish or orange tinge which makes rooms feel warmer and cozier.

Experiment with different bulbs and settings to see what works best with your room. For the ultimate color selection, try an EcoSmart lightbulb with 5 CCT (Correlated Color Temperature) that lets you customize the color of light using an integrated switch. Bulbs equipped with DuoBright technology empower you to adjust the color temp. and brightness with your existing dimmer switch to meet your preferences any time - emitting 5,000 Kelvins (Daylight) at full brightness and slowly transitioning to 2,000 Kelvins (Sunset Glow) when dimmed.

Change your lightbulbs, change the world - The other good news about swapping out lightbulbs? You're helping the environment, too. On average, an enhanced EcoSmart LED bulb uses 85% less energy than a traditional incandescent lightbulb.

Learn more about EcoSmart lightbulbs available exclusively in-store at The Home Depot or online at HomeDepot.com.