Bathroom lighting options explored

Good lighting is important in any room in your home, but how you light your bathroom is absolutely crucial. You need to be able to see effectively, whether you’re brushing your teeth, applying make-up or putting in contact lenses. But effective bathroom lighting goes further than simple functionality – your bathroom is likely to be a place where you pamper yourself, after all, so you want to be able to create a luxurious feel should the mood take you.

Here’s how to get the best from your bathroom when it comes to lighting it up:

General lighting

Downlighting will be the primary way for you to light your bathroom. This could be a single central light, a hanging pendant or multiple recessed spotlights. But remember you don’t need to stick to a regimented pattern for your downlighting. You might want to place some lights nearer the door, or perhaps near a wall to create an attractive cascading effect.

It’s important to consider specific areas too, so you might want to arrange your spotlights so they help focus light on the shower, bath or toilet specifically.

Lighting for specific tasks

This is the light you’ll use for tasks such as shaving or applying make-up. Generally speaking, it’s important to avoid downlighting directly over this area, as it can cast awkward shadows over your face. Instead, think about lighting your face from either side using pendant lights or lights inset into the walls. You can also use mirror lights; frosted strip lighting embedded in your mirror or strip lighting behind the mirror.

Mood lighting

Low-level LED lighting can really give your bathroom a luxurious feel. Think about how you can use strategically placed uplights or floor lights to help create multiple layers of mood lighting.

Dimmable lighting can also help to create a variety of moods, especially if you put several groups of lighting on different dimmable circuits.

Lighting to make an impact

If you have particular features you want to highlight in your bathroom, or even if you want to create them from scratch, lit niches can really add a dose of visual drama to your bathroom’s light scene.

Similarly, low-level lighting that is operated by a sensor can add mood and visual impact to your bathroom. The fact that it means you won’t bang into anything when you need the loo in the middle of the night is an added bonus.

Be sympathetic to existing fixtures

If you’re not working on a bathroom from scratch, you’ll need to ensure that any lighting fixtures you put in work tonally with the rest of your bathroom – if you have an ornate Victorian bathroom, ultra-modern strip lights are going to create a horrible clash. Similarly, old-fashioned lighting in a modern, minimalist clean-lined bathroom just won’t look right.

Make sure your lighting is safe

Electricity and water really don’t mix well, so you must ensure that any lighting you put in a bathroom has the correct IP rating for the area you want to place it in.

Image credit: istockphoto.com