Bathrooms and Bedrooms: Which Lighting Where?

Lighting is a small investment you can make towards your home. Eye-catching lighting looks great and always welcomes compliments from visitors. Choosing the right lighting for your bathroom and bedroom is very important and in many homes, something that is not always taken into consideration.  

Lighting has a different purpose in every space of your home. In this article we discover the best lighting to use for bedrooms and bathrooms.  

Stylish Bathrooms 

According to Forbes the vanity, bath area and shower all require different lighting, but the bathroom’s overall design still needs to feel stylish and cohesive. If you are spending a lot of money on revamping an old bathroom or building a new one, a portion of that budget should be allocated to your lighting.  

Bathroom lighting should allow for three sources of light. Ambient, task and accent lighting. Your first source of lighting is your decorative lighting. Timeless chandeliers, pendants and interesting wall-mounted fixtures with lampshades give your bathroom that special edge. Your second should be lighting required for grooming and makeup. Your third source is accent lighting which is primarily used to accentuate the design of your bathroom.   

The same type of lighting is required for a bedroom space. The difference is that your bedroom is a place for relaxation and sleep and you would not necessarily require the same intensity of lighting that one would find in the bathroom. 

Dreamy Bedrooms 

Your bedroom is your sanctuary and should be lit as such. Get inspiration from the way your favourite spa is lit when you go for a massage. Both soft and hard lights are required in a bedroom. If possible, try to incorporate as much natural light into your bedroom as well.  

Over and above your ambient, task and accent lighting, your bedroom would need the addition of dimmers. Multifunctional dimmers let you add an extra dimension to the room’s look. Dimmers can accommodate many of your lighting needs. When used at maximum brightness your dimmers will act as general lighting and when dimmed allows for a more relaxed mood setting. Because dimmers are easy to install they can be used on any light fixture you desire. 

Neon lighting has also become a trendy topic in bedroom design. From creating word art to just using neon lights as accents, they are quite versatile in the bedroom. 

A Bulb Choice 

There are many types of bulbs you can explore when installing your lighting. According to the Department of Energy, there are a few popular types of bulbs used in households. 

• Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL): Compact fluorescent lights have a longer lifespan and, when compared to incandescent lights, are considered to be more efficient in terms of the energy it consumes.  

• Halogen Lights: Halogen lights is an incandescent light that consists of a tungsten filament that is sealed into a compact transparent envelope filled with a combination of inert gas and a small number of halogens such as bromine or iodine. They have a significantly high energy efficiency ranking and are not environmentally friendly due to the chemicals they possess as mentioned earlier.

• Incandescent Lights: Incandescent light is an old lighting technology dating back to the late 1800s, and was considered as being highly energy-efficient bulbs for about a century and based on the latest energy-efficient light bulbs available on the South African Market, these bulbs have lost their popularity and are slowly but surely phasing out. 

• Light-emitting diodes (LED): LEDs are currently the most advanced lighting technology today. It has the highest energy efficiency of all lightbulbs on the market, and even longer lifespan when compared to both compact fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs, and they are 100% recyclable making them the environment’s biggest fan. 

 Need new lighting? Explore our expert listings on the brand new HOMEMAKERSOnline website.  

Lalela le ndatshana ngesiZulu lapha (Listen to this article in Zulu here):