Luxury Living with Debrae Little

Announcer 0:00
This is a KU NB studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The you

Debrae Little 0:40
Dave, hello and welcome to luxury living with the Bray, the podcast for discerning homeowners who understand that true luxury isn't just about what you own, but how it makes you feel calm, inspired and you can easily elevate every moment of the day. I'm Dave Bray, and in each episode, we explore the craft, the science and the stories behind remarkable interiors. Today's episode is a special deep dive into one of the most transformative elements of any luxury home lighting. We're exploring not just how light illuminates space, but how it shapes mood, highlights, sculptures, preserves color and fabrics and art and ultimately guides the way we live. Our guest today is Senior Business Development Specialist Sharon Claire, from visual comfort will demystify essential lighting terms led versus fluorescent color temperature, measured in Kelvin, lumens and color variation, so you can speak with clarity, with shaping your next project, we'll unpack why good lighting design matters, from layered ambience tasks and accent lighting to the subtle drama of well placed chandelier or sculptural wall sconces. We'll give you a clear view with visual comforts world 40 designers can you believe that six collections and a full spectrum of lighting types that can be tailored to your home's architecture and your lifestyle? So if you're upgrading a foyer that welcomes guests with cinema worthy sheen, rethinking a library to balance focus and warmth, or composing a gallery wall where color fidelity matters as much as composition. This episode is for you. Let's illuminate the possibilities. Welcome to luxury living with Debre. Welcome. Sharon, thank you. It's great to be here. Dave Ray, thank you. Tell us all about your journey into lighting and design. What drew you to visual comfort.

Sharon Clair 2:38
So I think it's interesting. So I have been in the building materials industry for a couple of decades, about 25 years, and I have been involved with various aspects of different building materials. I've worked on a lot of street of dreams homes, new American homes, show homes, if you will. And throughout the years, the one thing that I truly noticed is the lighting in each of these homes massively affects the way everything else in the home looks. So I think I was drawn to visual comfort a few years ago because of that I saw firsthand the difference that it makes you can, you know, take a lot of time selecting the materials and the finishes and the floor plan and all of that. But without illuminating, illuminating it properly, it you just don't get your best design. So I guess I would say that would be what drew me.

Debrae Little 3:38
I see was there when you mentioned this was that a particular project that you noticed. I mean, where did you really see that happening? Where you found the lighting design wasn't quite

Sharon Clair 3:49
so I saw that throughout the years, in some of the projects that I was doing in the areas where you see the luxury homes, like the areas like McDonald highlands in the Summit and the ridges, those types of areas here in Las Vegas. And I saw that, you know, a homeowner would hire a designer and really depend on them to guide them in their journey. And you know, some designers know about good lighting and the layers of lighting and others do not. And I guess I just kind of felt kind of bad for the end user, the homeowner, when I would see, you know, a luxury home, and it really didn't come together as beautifully as I personally knew that it could.

Debrae Little 4:36
And so you decided to jump into that market.

Sharon Clair 4:39
So I decided to jump into that market and be an evangelist for lighting.

Debrae Little 4:45
I love it. Well, let me ask you this, how does I was fortunate enough to visit the showroom a week or so ago and was really educated on the importance of lighting and the different layers, which was just transfer. Formative for me in my reviewing some of my projects that I have done, and I know now to always bring in a lighting designer to craft the space and create the mood and what I'm trying to provide to the client. But my question is, What? What? What services do you provide individually say to the I know you said the end user was important to you, but to educate that designer that you mentioned in that project where you could see where there was a stumble or there was a misstep

Sharon Clair 5:36
there, yeah. So that's a great question. So yes. So we do have a beautiful showroom here in Las Vegas, and my job is to educate the designers and everybody involved with the project, actually. And doing that, there's a couple things that I like to do. One thing I like to do is invite the designers into our showroom, where I can do a full visual presentation, really showing the effects of a room with ordinary lighting versus a well thought out room with the same room with layers of lighting. And that's what we like to call, you know, great lighting is layers of lighting. We believe you need the three layers. You need the what's in the ceiling, the architectural recessed, which we believe is the most overlooked. The second layer would be the linear so, you know, the the under cabinets, and, you know, under islands, and you know those types of things. And then, of course, the decorative, the chandeliers and sconces. But we actually call those the jewelry. So, you know, one without the other is it just doesn't complete it. It's not a

Debrae Little 6:43
complete outfit, correct? We need to do head to toe. Well, you mentioned under cabinet lighting. Now, is that considered to be a task lighting, or it? Can that be decorative? Or does it fall into the category of architectural lighting?

Sharon Clair 6:59
That's going to be more of an architectural Okay, and more of an ambient, typically, okay. It really creates mood in depth our you know, you mentioned earlier that we do have many lighting designers on our staff, close to 40, around 40, and they can really help kind of pinpoint the areas where linear lighting would accentuate a space. So something that you don't have to know, we can help you with that. And that's, you know, one of the special things I think about us.

Debrae Little 7:33
Well, I would agree. I mean, I do understand the different layers of light and how important it is. It makes such a difference. It makes your cabinets look fantastic. It makes the texture and the wood, and since I'm still speaking about a kitchen, all of that, it's so important, and it makes your food looks good look on the countertops, that's for sure. But tell me about the six collections that's quite a bit that visual comfort offers.

Sharon Clair 8:02
Yes, so thank you for asking that. Another thing that I'm very proud of is our six collection. So we have everything from our Signature Collection, which those are really going to be, the hand finished statement pieces, the alabaster, the Austrian crystal, the designs from Anne Marie Barton Waterford Crystal. You know, those types of things we have, our modern collection, which is really a clean form, clean lines, but beautiful textures, beautiful materials, our Architectural Collection, we typically refer to those items as our architectural recess. So those are the in the ceiling recess lights, and then the linear lights as well. Our studio collection that's going to be beautiful looks similar to the signature looks, but the materials aren't going to be real living finishes, so you can still achieve a beautiful look at a lower price point. Then we have a full fan collection, which it's esthetically beautiful, all different sizes, AC, DC motors, really, we can cover, you know, any need that there is. And then our generation collection, that's a legacy, Legacy line that we have. And it really is for those projects where, you know, it is budget friendly. We have a budget we need to stay within, and so we can definitely work within those guidelines as well.

Debrae Little 9:28
I see So most designers that you come across that come into the showroom, so they're with a client or without a client. Are they focused more on the pretty lighting, like the chandeliers or the decorative that you find, and in the education component that you provide comes in when it comes to the linear lighting.

Sharon Clair 9:49
So that's a very, very good point also. So the majority of designers that I've run across, I'll speak for this market, at least, and I think it's true nationwide. Speaking to my counterparts, most designers and most homeowners and, you know, users, they see the decorative as as everything. So they come into our showroom and they see the Austrian crystal chandeliers, and they think, Well, you know, if I pick these jewelry, these jewelry pieces that we call them, the house is going to be beautiful. So my job, our job is really to provide education that that's just one component. So it's really fun educating people a lot of times, you know, we'll talk to the designer, and once the designer really sees it and feels it and believes it, then, you know, I'll ask the designer, do you want to bring the homeowner in with you so that we can share that with them, and we're happy to do that. So, as you know, Dubray, you could come in, you can bring your your homeowner, you can bring the general contractor, anybody involved with the project, and we can walk them through all the details as well. Because seeing is believing. It really is a visual thing.

Debrae Little 10:57
No, it truly is. And I'd like to say that, based on my knowledge of the brand, that there's something there for everyone. I've seen the timeless, I've seen the contemporary, I've seen the very innovative lighting. I mean, it's just, it's, it's like being in the jewelry store again. And so I can see why a designer, or perhaps even the client, would just be dazzled by what's hanging throughout the showroom, and maybe not paying attention to the nuts and bolts of what the various layer of lighting is needed or necessary in that design and and that's I think that's something that the designer really does have to play a role in educating the client to make sure that we've got all our bases covered and we aren't just focusing on them on the pretty chandelier that we see, but you've got 40 design, I mean, 40 designers participating in that mix. And so that's that's a that's a lot of options.

Sharon Clair 11:52
There it is. And to your point, so we really try to be innovative and really kind of on the front of design trends. And we do feel like we partner with the very best designers. And our latest collaboration is with Anne Marie Barton, and her designs are absolutely spectacular. They're very warm, very earthy. You know, they there's some pendants that you have choice of different leather belts in it, you know, different types of glass, model glass. She's also got some beautiful cuff styled pendants and sconces that were modeled after a cuff bracelet that have Alabaster and just absolutely, very beautiful, very bespoke and very, very on trend for for Las Vegas, and, you know, the landscape that we have here with the mountains and, you know, just the scenery.

Debrae Little 12:51
Yeah, I think I did take a look at that collection, and I felt that it was very inventive. The use of leather was it would remind me of a gentleman's belt and different things like that. And they were just there, were gorgeous. There was a lot of chandeliers that I could see in an entryway that would just be stunning. Let's talk a little bit about the types of lighting, because, as we mentioned a few minutes ago, that was really about the education, the educational process that needs to happen and so, and I know that you offer that that service so that people will have a better understanding of what they're shopping for and what they should be shopping for. How do you see the chandeliers pendants and wall sconces and table lamps, and I'm just rattling off a long list of floor lamps and all of that. How do you see them playing a distinctive role and say, a res or a luxury residence, they I think they all have a place.

Sharon Clair 13:46
So, yeah, absolutely that's those types of things are going to be more ambient lighting, really. The lot of the heavy work is going to come from the architectural recess in the ceilings, and that's why we need to be very intentional as to where we put them, how we space them, where we angle them. We want to intentionally direct the light from the ceiling to the areas in the home that need the light. So an example, if we're in a kitchen and you have a quartzite waterfall Island, we're going to really want to pay good attention to those lights in the ceiling, and we're going to want to angle them to hit the the island there, because we want to, we want to accentuate that. We're going to want to do some beautiful linear lighting underneath the the quartzite. We're going to want to do linear in the cabinets. We're going to want to also pay attention to the fact that we do need task lighting in the kitchen, because you're going to be using knives and cooking, and you need, you know, that type of lighting in there. So every room that we design in, every room we walk through, we want to get a full picture of what's in the home. Who are the homeowners? How do they live? And really create a space that really does. Works well for them to live

Debrae Little 15:01
in. I see, I think I can see that it's well, it's important. It's something that I seek to do is just in terms of having the right sofa or the right leather chair in a man's office, you know, or the light that goes over a pool table, you know. And all of these are, they're really important. You have to select the right light so you can you can perform the task that you would like to, whether it's just sitting, I said, in a leather chair and you want to read, then you need maybe the tall floor lamp for that. Or maybe if you're at your desk, which is more task oriented, but I guess the standing lap could be too. But if you're working at your desk and your computer, perhaps you need a different light fixture. And if you're just sitting there and you're watching television, then maybe ambient light might be the better, better choice for you. So I could see how all of these could work in one room. Absolutely, I find that customization is really important for the luxury client, because they are, they want, you know, they want to bring out their personalities, of course, because it's important in terms of how they live and use the space and then. But what are like? The most popular finishes that you find that, say a luxury homeowner. I mean, I know that now that we're seeing, you know, plunge pools and all kinds of things, spas and saunas and all of that seem to be on trend right now for most luxury homeowners, they are really vacationing in their home, everything. So they don't even have to leave for a massage or whatever the case. Do you have instances where you can specify different lighting for those particular like a plunge pool or a coal bath or,

Sharon Clair 16:55
yeah, as a matter of fact, we do. It's funny, but we are working on a project now where they have, like, a tranquility room, so a lot of really specialized rooms and kind of, like what you're saying here. So yeah, I mean, absolutely to your point, we're going to really take that into account, and we are going to suggest things that you know, maybe somebody doesn't even know, is a product that's available, really, to achieve what we want to achieve in that space

Debrae Little 17:23
I see, well, let's talk a little bit more about the fundamentals of lighting. We talked a little bit about ambient lighting, task lighting, decorative lighting. So tell us about the difference between and this is this is always a tough one for most clients I find of understanding LED lights versus fluorescent lights and why one is better than the Oh on the other. And then what's in terms of long time, long term planning, you know, in terms of using one or the other, maybe perhaps one is fairly outdated now, yeah,

Sharon Clair 17:57
so led versus fluorescent first, let me say everything is going to eventually be led. It is a much cooler product, so it doesn't create the heat that fluorescent does. It's much better for the environment. LED. With LED, you're not going to have to be changing out bulbs like you would with fluorescent. Led, on average, are going to last around 50,000 hours. Wow, 50,000 hours of being on. So if you figure that that's a long time, the LED chips, you know, are created to, you know, be low heat, to be very they're going to cost you less, so lower energy bills, you know, they're going to be dimmable. There's just so much you can do with them. A lot of our decorative fixtures now are have the integrated LED in them. There's still some that do have, you know, bulbs. But, like I say, that's definitely going to be going away in the future. Everything will be led

Debrae Little 19:01
well, with the fact that it's, it lasts forever, it sounds like and it's better for you, then I could see how we could take over the marketplace. I mean, you know, I things have changed so much in terms of lighting, what should we know about the the color temperature, the Kelvin? You know, the decisions that that actually like guide clients to set the mood for the

Sharon Clair 19:23
room? Yes. So typically, in a residential application, people are going to want a 20 700k or 3,000k so the lower the number, the warmer the temperature is going to be, the higher the number, the less warm it's going to be. So if you think of commercial applications like a big box store or something like that, they're not going to have a 2700 they're not going to have a 3000 they'll probably have a 4000 because they just want to blanket the whole place with a lot of light, a lot of like intense light. But in a home. Home. You really want it to feel like a home 2700 we find that a lot, and it kind of is a personal preference at times, but we find a lot of times people that have like the dark floors and they like the Black Onyx counters and dark cabinets, they're probably going to gravitate more towards a warmer 20 700k and the people who say, you know, my house is all these windows and white quartzite and very light floors, that's probably going to be more of a 3,000k type of person.

Debrae Little 20:32
I could see that they want to let the sun shine in, though they light in, yeah,

Sharon Clair 20:37
yeah. But at the end of the day, it is going to be, you know, definitely a personal preference. And that's another thing we try to educate, let the designers understand it, so that they can let the homeowners understand it. And we have samples of these also where we can show, you, know, real life. This is what 20 700k application looks like. This is what 3000 looks like. Because we really want to make sure at the end of the day that the homeowner loves what they have, and they feel peaceful and happy in their space,

Debrae Little 21:04
right? No, I truly that is the goal. So if I had to summarize that a little bit in terms of the golden rules of lighting design, is that typically, for a homeowner, it's 20 700k

Sharon Clair 21:18
2700 or 3000 lot of people in Las Vegas, for some reason really like 3000 okay, I do personally, yeah, yeah, but I'd say one or the other. You rarely see anybody wanting anything other than that. And in fact, we just had a homeowner a luxury home, and she really thought she wanted 20 700k and we did show the differences and all that. But at the end of the day, when it was all said and done and they were delivered, she really did want 3000 so, yeah, we switched

Debrae Little 21:47
those out. Well, that was awfully that was nice. It was good that she came to that realization, because they do need to see it, and sometimes they don't really under have an understanding of it until they're actually in their own space. Yeah, that's

Sharon Clair 22:00
why samples are good. And, yeah, you know, if you are doing a project, it's good to, you know, get one, install it, you know, just one, and let the homeowner look and feel it. And, you know, maybe you do a 20 700k and A 3000 let them stand under it and make the decision, instead of ordering the whole house in one or the other.

Debrae Little 22:20
That makes sense. Definitely does. What about lumens? What does that actually mean in the app, in the application of lighting?

Sharon Clair 22:29
So the lumens is going to be how much light it's it's putting out, basically. And that's another thing. If you, if you do get involved with our professional lighting designers, they're going to make sure they need that in each room we have the appropriate amount of lumens in the space. So you just want to make sure every space is illuminated, you know, properly to fit what's going on in that room.

Debrae Little 22:51
I see, can you share, maybe a story where, well, I think you just shared a story actually, what provides, what precise color lighting really made a difference, and because you were speaking about the homeowner who actually decided that she wanted 3,000k and it's because he's probably was it was throughout the whole entire home, or was it a particular space throughout the entire home? So that leads me to my next question is, once you set that color temperature, do you find it's through, throughout the home for the maybe the general areas, you know, the open areas,

Sharon Clair 23:26
typically, yes. However, if you have somebody that says, I just really prefer the warm and I want 2700 maybe in the closets, you know, they'll do 3000 so they can see the clothes a little better. Maybe in the kitchen, they'll do 3000 but a rule is, if you've got areas where you're going to see one area to the next, it's good to keep the same color temperature throughout, you know? So you don't have a break in the eye with the different color temperatures, right?

Debrae Little 23:54
I can imagine that. Well, it's the same as flooring. Maybe you don't want 1000 different flooring floors throughout your home, so you can have a consistency and a nice flow. Tell me a little bit about the role of sustainability that it plays in visual comforts, designs and the manufacturing processes.

Sharon Clair 24:13
So I can tell you with sustainability,

Debrae Little 24:21
that's a trick question there. No, no, it's, I find that a lot of often, that's what I'm hearing. Is this sustainable? How was this manufactured? Is this, I

Sharon Clair 24:32
could say, with us, the LED is the sustainability piece, okay? And that's why we, and you know, pretty much everybody that I know about, is really going full, full speed ahead for all LED

Debrae Little 24:44
and having said that, what's like the budgeting impact if I'm going to come in and actually light my home exactly the way it should be done with the various layers of light, and starting with the architect. Actual and the linear, what are we looking at in terms of, like, a cost is, is that, you know, because every homeowner is always trying to figure out, and I'm also always asking, yeah, what is the budget? What is your budget?

Sharon Clair 25:13
Yeah, so that's a very good question, and that's something we ask you to when we come in. So, yeah, let me speak to a couple of different points on that. So first point being with our lighting design, we do have five different lighting design levels, so let's start with that. So we have levels all the way from schematic, where you bring us your plans, it's completely no charge, and we just kind of, you know, say this is where the recess would go, and kind of put those in, kind of give you that. So that's just very basic, very simple, all the way up to our fifth level of design, which is our whole house systems. And with our whole house systems, we do everything from the architectural recess lighting, the linear lighting, placeholders for the decorative lighting. But in addition to that, we're going to do all the automated shading and programming and design we do Lutron shades and motors, so you can have one company really responsible for all of those things. And to go back to your question on budget, so the first thing that we're going to want to decide is which level of design do we want to do? So we're going to decide between one through five. Then after that, we're going to sit down and we're going to have a budgetary meeting, and we're going to do a budgetary worksheet, because there's always a budget, right? And the beauty of visual comfort is we do have five different levels of recess products also. So we have everything from, you know, our top of the line product, which, you know, won multiple awards at Light Fair and does five different things, you know, all the way to the very basic type of light so we could really achieve any budget that we need to. I hope that kind of answers your question, and it's, I guess it's all relative to the homeowner and the value that they see in lighting. So that is another reason that we like to get the homeowner in the showroom to really give them the visual so that they understand. Another thing that we are going to do right after our budgetary meeting is we go through a worksheet where we're going to kind of decide, you know, which of these products do we like? Do we like round? Do we like square in the ceiling? Do we want flanged or flange less? Do we want warm, dim, static, white? So there's a lot of things like that that we're going to educate the designer and the owner on as we move through the process as well.

Debrae Little 27:32
I see. So what would be your in wrapping up, what are your final tips? What advice would you like to leave with our listeners regarding visual comforts collection and as far as their design lighting consultation.

Sharon Clair 27:47
So I guess what I would say is visual comfort is a full service luxury lighting company. So we get involved with everything that affects the light the way it comes in a home, and we're here for you. So we're here to educate. We're here to help you design, if you like that. We have also have landscape products and landscape architecture. So my advice to the listeners is, if you have a new client, let us be your partner. Let us be an extension of your business. We'll educate you will educate your homeowner, you know, so that the end of the day you look right in your homeowner is a really happy homeowner.

Debrae Little 28:28
Well, that is definitely the goal. We certainly want that to happen. We want happy clients so they pay on time. So so the luxury living with Debre on KU nv 91.5 for future episodes featuring leaders and luxury designs. And I want to thank Sharon Claire for being here today with from visual comfort. And as you can tell, she's very knowledgeable when you're looking to sort out your clients lighting needs.

Sharon Clair 28:58
Thank you, Dave. It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate the invitation, and I hope I get to meet some of these beautiful designers on the other end,

Debrae Little 29:09
you will, you certainly will.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai