A first apartment lighting kit

Do this while the apartment is empty, because it takes twenty minutes then and an hour once there is furniture in the way.

1. Which rooms have no ceiling fixture. Look up in every room. In a lot of rented housing, bedrooms and living rooms have none, and that single fact determines whether a room needs a lamp or just a better bulb.

2. Which outlets are switched. In rooms with no ceiling fixture there is usually a wall switch controlling half of one outlet. Finding it takes two minutes with a lamp and it decides where your main light goes - the method is in switched outlets.

3. What bulbs are actually fitted. Read the lumen figure on each one. Landlords fit whatever was cheapest, which frequently means 450 lumen bulbs in rooms that need 800, and that is the cheapest problem you will ever fix.

First, bulbs. A CRI 95 bulb at 800 lumens and 2700K in every fitting in the apartment. One color temperature throughout, which costs nothing extra at purchase time and is the thing that most often makes a rented place stop looking rented. Take the old bulbs out, box them, and put them back when you leave - the argument is in taking your lighting with you.

Second, one lamp. If a room has no ceiling fixture, a 2,190 lumen torchiere in the corner covers most of that room's target on its own, plugs into an ordinary outlet and is the single highest-impact purchase available. Put it in whichever room you spend evenings in, not the one that looks worst.

Third, dimming. A plug-in dimmer between that lamp and the wall costs very little and turns a lamp sized for the afternoon into one that also works at 10pm. It is the cheapest quality-of-life upgrade in the whole list - see plug-in dimmers.

Fourth, task light. Wherever you actually do something: a kitchen counter, a desk. An 18 in. plug-in bar at 1,245 lumens and CRI 92 under a wall cabinet changes cooking more than any ceiling fixture, and it mounts with adhesive or screws into the cabinet rather than the building.

Do not buy a fixture for a room you have not lived in yet. Where you end up sitting, and therefore where light needs to be, is rarely where you think it will be on move-in day. Give it a fortnight before committing to a position.

Do not buy anything that needs a landlord conversation yet. Hardwired fixtures, wall dimmers and anything requiring a fixing all sit in the permission tier described in can you change a light fixture in an apartment. None of them is necessary to get an apartment from bad to good, and all of them are easier to ask about once you have a relationship with the landlord.

Do not start with smart lighting. Smart bulbs are genuinely renter-friendly - they leave with you and need no wiring - but they solve control, not quantity. A smart bulb in a room that is 1,000 lumens short is still a room that is 1,000 lumens short. Get the levels right, then add control if you want it.

Do not buy matching lamps for every room at once. Rooms have different jobs and different amounts of daylight. Finish one room properly, live with it, and let it teach you what the next one needs - the staged approach in a whole-home lighting plan.