by Adina Gewirtz
How important is lighting in a room where you spend most of your hours in the dark? Very. If you want to avoid eye strain, get a good night’s sleep and present yourself to the world looking put together, choosing the right bedroom lighting is key.
While bedrooms are private space, they’re also multipurpose rooms. You sleep there, but you also dress, relax, read and often work there. You can’t make one type of light serve all these purposes. Luckily, you don’t have to. Lighting comes in three types: ambient, task and accent, a combination of which can help you create the ideal bedroom.
Ambient Lighting
If you’re looking for bedroom lighting ideas, begin by assessing the ambient, or general, light in the room. Ambient light comes from all light sources put together — natural light from windows and artificial light from mounted fixtures and lamps. Once it gets dark, it’s the artificial light sources that create the mood of the room, so for bedrooms, try bulbs that cast warm, orange-red tones that subtly mimic firelight, and send your body a signal to relax.
Overhead fixtures usually provide most of the ambient light in a bedroom, and depending on your décor, you can choose from a wide range of styles, including chandeliers, pendant lights, fan lights and recessed lighting, to spread a general glow in the room. If there's no wiring to the ceiling to accommodate an overhead light, combine standalone lamps to give your bedroom the light it needs.
Since the general light in a bedroom is what you use for dressing and other everyday activities, it’s a good idea to think about installing dimmer switches, so that you can brighten the light when you need to match socks and dim it when you’re trying to unwind in the evening. Remember too that age matters when it comes to light. To see clearly, senior citizens need at least three times the amount of light that younger people do, and so lights that can be brightened and dimmed are especially important for those over age 65.
Another nice feature is a switch by both the bed and door, so that you can enter a dark room without falling over the shoes you left out, but turn off the lights at night without getting out of bed.
Task Lighting
Task lighting — light that illuminates a small space for close work or reading, — can increase the ambient light in a room and prevent eye strain when the ambient light isn’t bright enough to do the job. If you have a desk in your room, a small lamp with a focused beam is perfect for brightening the work space, and an armchair can often become a separate, cozy area for reading or unwinding when you position a sturdy floor lamp to one side of it.
Bedside lighting. One of the most common task lights in a bedroom is a bedside reading light, which can make it easier to set a relaxed tone once you switch off the overhead light for the night. If you share a room and want to avoid disturbing your partner, consider a mounted wall lamp with a baffle that can be adjusted to direct the light onto the pages of your book only. If you’re looking to accessorize your room as well as see better at night, try bedside table lamps. They come in so many shapes and colors that they can enhance any type of decor, from modern to traditional.
Lights for grooming and dressing. Another great place for task lighting is the dressing table or vanity. Here, make sure light is directed toward you, so that it illuminates you without causing too much reflection in the mirror. If you want to flatter your skin tone, choose warmer bulbs for these fixtures; if you want to approximate sunlight, choose cooler bulbs.
Closets, too, need bright light that accurately renders colors. Overhead fixtures are best here — either recessed or close to the ceiling — so they cast a uniform glow. Fit them with bulbs that cast a whiter light than those in the main overhead fixtures.
Accent Lighting
Accent lights highlight a design feature in the room, such as a piece of art. These lights, either free-standing or wall-mounted, cast a focused beam on the design feature and create a dramatic look with the spotlight and shadows it casts. To achieve the desired effect, accent lighting needs to be three times brighter than the other light in the room.
Adina Gewirtz is a freelance writer in the Washington, D.C. area.
