Wattage measures energy draw, not brightness — with LED bulbs now standard, it's a poor proxy for how much light a fixture actually puts out. Lumens measure actual brightness: a typical living room wants roughly 1,500 to 3,000 total lumens across its fixtures; a kitchen or task area wants more, in the 3,000 to 6,000 range. Ask a store for a fixture's lumen output, not just its wattage equivalent.
Color temperature, measured in Kelvin, determines whether light reads warm or cool: 2,700K to 3,000K is warm white, closest to incandescent and generally right for living rooms and bedrooms; 3,500K to 4,100K is a neutral white common in kitchens and bathrooms; anything above 5,000K reads as cool, bluish daylight and can feel clinical in a residential space. Mixing color temperatures in the same room — a 2,700K lamp next to a 4,000K overhead fixture — is one of the most common, and most fixable, lighting mistakes.
A room lit by a single overhead fixture almost always looks flat. Layering ambient light (overhead or general), task light (reading lamps, under-cabinet lighting) and accent light (picture lights, uplighting) at different heights is what separates a considered room from a merely lit one — a combination a good lighting store will suggest even if it means selling three smaller fixtures instead of one large one.
For dimmable fixtures, confirm LED-compatible dimmer switches are actually installed — LED bulbs on an old incandescent-rated dimmer often flicker or buzz at low settings, a common complaint that has nothing to do with the fixture itself.