A Better-Lit Bedroom: The Lighting Guide For Beauty And Functionality May 24, 2017 00:00

Few other rooms in the home are as versatile and widely used as the bedroom.

Whereas these space used to be used simply to catch a few Zs in the past, the modern bedroom has now become everything from home office and family room to lounge and even dining room (beware of crumbs in the bed though).

But with all these different functionalities increasingly converging into a single space, it might be especially difficult to get your lighting scheme just right. After all, the warm and soft lighting of your end tables just doesn’t work for brightening up your desk.

That’s why we’ve put together this short guide on how to light this multipurpose room both functionally and beautifully.

Lighting your bed: the focus

Let’s start with why we’re all here in the first place – the bed!

Not only is the bed the primary reason we end up in this room anyhow, it’s also the place we spend about one third of our entire lifetime!

And when you add in all the other things we do in bed like checking email, a bit of light reading, and binge-watching TV, you’d be hard pressed to find an area of your home that gets more usage.

So, what’s the best way to light the most-used space in your home? Flexibly.

Given all the different kinds of tasks we perform in bed every single day, making the claim that there’s one ultimate lighting scheme that’ll work for everyone is, well, just not true.

Sitting around and watching the tube doesn’t take a whole lot of dexterity and attention to detail (especially because most of us can navigate the remote with our eyes closed). And less details means lower lighting.  

On the other hand, digging into a novel will probably take a bit more concentration and thus requires brighter lights.

The solution to this multifaceted lighting quandary – a dimmer!

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, few things come in as handy as a dimmer switch. Being able to adjust the luminosity of your fixtures lets you cater the brightness of your room to the activity, not the other way around.

Don’t forget about color temperature

What’s more, it’s crucial to both your sleep schedule and to the comfortable feel of your bedroom that you educate yourself on the ins and outs of color temperature. Beyond radically altering the look of your space, lighting your bedroom with the wrong kind of bulb can even make it harder for you to have a good night’s rest.

Take the time, then, to outfit your end table lights with warm, soft lighting rather than cool and crisp. While the bluer light might look great in a kitchen or even the office, the harsh lines and disconcerting modernity that comes with cool lighting doesn’t exactly create a space you just want to curl up in.

Taking that into account, a few things should be said about recessed lighting. While many recessed lighting schemes give homeowners an affordable and convenient illumination solution, they come at the price of adding a lot of “direct lighting” to a space.

Rather than bathing a room in light through shades or upward lighting like lamps and other fixtures (indirect lighting), recessed lighting typically shines directly down onto the occupants. The result is a high contrast bedroom that no one will feel at home in.

And if you do have recessed lighting already, be sure to outfit your fixtures with warm and soft lighting to help dampen these effects.

Lighting the other areas of your bedroom

Now that you’ve got the focus of your bedroom looking great, what about the rest of the area? After all, a bedroom is far more than just a bed nowadays.

As with any other space in your home, there are definitely a few mistakes to avoid at all costs. Getting your task lighting just right is one that will apply to any bedroom that has a corner set aside specifically for reading or working on the computer.

But again, you’ll want to be sure each of these lights has a dimmer and uses warm, soft lighting as well. This is especially important if your partner is trying to get some shuteye and you’re still burning the midnight oil on the other side of the room.

Most importantly though, is lighting your bedroom how you want it. This is where you’ll end up spending about a third of your life after all.

Got any other bedroom lighting tips?

If you’ve found a few lighting tips that have really revolutionized your space, let us know in the comment section below! And brighten up yo