Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Whether leaderboard ad sticky behavior is disabled

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show expanded byline information on articles

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Show the Balance of Power component on the new Election subnav component

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Enable new Elections subnav on Site pages

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

If true, will use a spoofed user agent to scrape and summarize content from paywalled sources

flip back to old full page reload when new updates come in

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Trump transition live updates: President-elect raises prospect of pardons for Jan. 6 crimes

Trump Campaign

Advice and news on home and interior design

See more on this topic in your recommendations

Home design

Weekly tips on improving your home and garden.

At Home newsletter

Music icon Mariah Carey is best known for her love songs, but this week she expressed her distinct hate for a particular foe: overhead lighting.

“Listen, I can’t with overhead lighting,” Carey said on the podcast “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DBFMa5-pdW6/?hl=en" target=_blank>Las Culturistas</a>,” during a segment in which people have a minute to air specific — and humorous — grievances. She jokingly said she was “tortured by the hideous lighting in every elevator, doorway, gyms. … Shut the lights. Turn them out. I don’t want to see them.” Her salvo struck a nerve.

David Warfel, founding designer at Light Can Help You, agrees with Carey. “Overhead lighting is a curse that most of us live under,” says Warfel, who is based in Madison, Wisconsin. “And I would say that anyone who says they hate overhead lighting is basically saying, ‘Hey, I’m a human being.’”

There are compelling reasons bright light from above can ruin the mood or make someone feel ill at ease. However, the phrase “overhead lighting” has become a catchall for many types of lighting people don’t like: recessed lights, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2024/09/16/replace-boob-light-tips/" target=_blank>boob lights</a>, LED wafer lights and whatever other ceiling fixtures are on the outs. Indeed, the lighting designers we spoke to don’t even agree on what, precisely, constitutes “overhead lighting.” The jury was split, for example, on whether chandelier and pendant fixtures count.

Still, designers caution against a full-throated disavowal of all lighting affixed to the ceiling. When placed and directed correctly, overhead fixtures, even of the oft-maligned recessed type, can create light that bounces off the walls and ceilings before hitting your eyes, resulting in a soft and comfortable glow. The problem is that most of the time, people don’t bother to set them up this way.

Carey isn’t the only celebrity to put overhead lighting in the spotlight by accusing it of providing overly harsh and unflattering illumination. “Nothing makes me angrier than overhead lighting,” the typically cheerful actress and talk show host Drew Barrymore <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@thedrewbarrymoreshow/video/7199084999440698667" target=_blank>said last year</a>.

A <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@geeeofdeee/video/7167282298621054209" target=_blank>viral TikTok from Australian TV host Gemma Driscoll</a> directed particular scorn toward what is often referred to as “the big light.” She says, “I don’t have many rules for my house, but I do have one, and that is that we never, ever, ever, ever, ever, eh-vah use the big light.” The audio is a popular soundtrack on <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@seekingdystopia/video/7175267747348139307" target=_blank>TikTok</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAjecOdpqT2/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D" target=_blank>Instagram</a> posts where users show off their lamps, sconces, candles and other sources of light.

The rationale against “the big light” is simple: Direct overhead lighting casts shadows and creates glare. Plus, light from above typically lands in our glare-sensitive peripheral vision.

“Now that lighting is getting better and brighter, it just means the glare is getting worse and worse,” Warfel says. “While we have the technology and the scientific understanding of the human body to deliver better electric light than at any other point in human history, I think lighting in our homes especially is getting worse instead of better.”

So why are the big light and its ilk so common? Part of it has to do with maximizing profit, says Dave Konstantin, founder of Konstantin Lighting Design. And the fact that often, no one with specific knowledge about lighting design consults on projects. “I’ve gone into multimillion dollar homes that are brand new, just built,” he says. “And the builder has just put very cheap recessed lights throughout the entire house. … A lot of people are totally immune to bad lighting.”

The notion of having a big light in the middle of the room is also a bit of a historic holdover, Warfel says. A fixture up high sheds light more broadly than something on a tabletop or on the floor, which is helpful if you’re relying on an oil lamp or a chandelier with candles. But today’s options are much brighter. “We thought that just by replacing it with a glare-inducing bulb, we would update it,” Warfel says. “But the truth is, we could do something far better today.”

For lighting designers, a renewed focus on the power of illumination feels long overdue. In the 1950s, leading figures such as Richard Kelly made the case that <a href="https://lucept.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/richard-kelly-lighting-as-an-integral-part-of-architecture.pdf" target="_blank">lighting was an integral part of architecture</a> and required the same kind of visual imagination as artforms like painting. He wrote that the “judicious and artful control” of lighting elements could even “stimulate the spirit,” in addition to making a space easy to see and feel safe.

Designers today similarly contend that layers of light are the key to making a room feel welcoming and useful for everything from entertaining to cleaning up after a party. An overhead light can be a part of the equation, particularly if it’s on a dimmer, but it shouldn’t be the only option.

Kristin Harrison, principal designer at <a href="https://www.bungalow10.com/" target=_blank>Bungalow 10 Interiors</a> in Virginia, tells clients that a mix of floor lamps, table lamps, wall sconces and a pendant or chandelier “really make you have the right type of light.”

Another issue she finds is that people with overhead fixtures often have the wrong LED lightbulbs in them. They end up with bulbs that mimic fluorescent light rather than the warmer tones of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2024/09/09/designers-hoard-incandescent-bulbs-led/" target=_blank>soon-to-be unsellable incandescent ones</a>. “The temperature of your lightbulb is a big deal,” she says. To her, 2700 kelvins are best.

“That’s why when people are like, ‘I hate overhead lighting,’ it’s not that they necessarily hate it, it’s that they don’t have the right temperature lighting,” Harrison says.

As for Carey, if anyone would know the difference between good and bad lighting, Harrison says, it would be her: “She knows what kind of light makes her face look good.”

Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting, 2021

Society of Professional Journalists' D.C. Dateline Awards Finalist for best series, 2022

Bates College, BA in English and Women and Gender Studies

Rachel Kurzius joined The Washington Post in 2022 as its inaugural reporter for The Home You Own.

Rachel Kurzius

washpost

Mariah Carey and the crusade against overhead lighting

the-washington-post

The Washington Post

Illustration by Katty Huertas/The Washington Post

The Home You Own

Small space living

Plants and outdoor living

Renovations and maintenance

Decorating

Cleaning and organizing

Home & Garden

prism://prism.query/site-and-discussions-not-future,/lifestyle/home-garden&limit=20

The Washington Post Home &amp; Garden section provides tips and advice for homeowners interested in home improvement and gardening. Resources and coupons for homes and gardens in DC, MD and VA. Guides for organizing, cleaning, planting and caring.

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/lifestyle&limit=20

Lifestyle

Washington Post Lifestyle gives you the latest fashion and beauty trends, home d&eacute;cor pointers, food and recipe ideas and reviews, relationship advice, travel ideas, wellness tips and much more.