Good lighting can make or break a successful room design. However, bathroom lighting is often overlooked in the planning stage, which is a shame. Good bathroom lighting is crucial in creating a functional and inviting space.
Understanding the importance of looking good
There is more to bathroom lighting than just being a practical necessity. Good lighting can make your bathroom feel more spacious, highlight its best features, and even improve daily rituals and routines.
Or we can put that another way. Bad lighting in the bathroom can make you shadowy and hideous and shake your self-esteem at its core. The right bathroom lighting, however, can take that image in the mirror from beast to beauty.
The bathroom is where you begin and end your day
It’s where you get yourself ready for work, big meetings, a special night out, or where you wind down and relax. To meet the demands of each of these roles, a successful bathroom needs clever lighting.
Sadly, lighting considerations often rank well below a luxury tub, modern fixtures and stylish tiles on the priority list. But our plumbing team is here to help you change all that. During their years on the tools, our plumbers have been in a fair few bathrooms, and they appreciate that getting the lighting right can be challenging. So, our team of bathroom experts has put together a few tips on bathroom lighting.
Highlights on task lighting
Firstly, yes, I know that women only make up about 5 per cent of the plumbing industry in New Zealand and that Dave and the other FlowFix plumbers don’t tend to wear makeup. However, they do shave, and thanks to many years of intensive training, they now fully appreciate that proper illumination is essential for tasks like applying makeup and styling hair as well as shaving.
Types of lighting for bathrooms
Having too much or too little lighting can make a space feel uncomfortable. To create a balanced and functional space, successful bathroom lighting incorporates three layers of light.
- Ambient: main overhead lighting that provides general illumination to the space.
- Task: specific lighting for tasks like applying makeup, brushing your teeth, shaving etc. without shadows or lines across your face.
- Accent: lighting for depth and to visual interest by highlighting specific features or decor elements.
Task lighting should be bright and focused
The number one thing you need in a bathroom is shadow-free task lighting at the mirror. This can be achieved in a number of ways.
1. Make sure there is light between your face and the mirror. Too many bathrooms have lights in the middle of the ceiling, and we’re yet to see a bathroom with anything that needs highlighting in the centre of the room.
2. Hollywood got it right with those fancy lit-up mirrors we see for applying makeup to the stars. They have lighting above, below and on either side of the face. Basically, the number one rule is to not put light above a person’s head. Overhead lighting streaks the face with shadows and accentuates wrinkles. The light source should come from directly in front of the person standing in front of a mirror, either from fixtures above and below or left and right. Ideally having lighting all around is the answer.
3. If lighting around the face in the mirror is not feasible, then lighting either side of the face is the next best option. Vertical fixtures or sconces can be mounted on either side of the mirror and are ideal for casting even light across the face, minimizing shadows. And when it comes to the right mounting height, aim for mid-face level.
4. Consider installing a mirror with a built-in LED light.
5. Illuminated wall-mounted make-up mirrors are a very effective supplementary option to an existing bathroom, particularly the magnification mirrors. They are very useful as our eyes get less young.
6. When choosing task lighting, aim for fixtures and bulbs that provide at least 150 watts of illumination.
7. Also, consider the warmth of the illumination. Colour temperature refers to the colour the bulb produces, from warm to cool, and it’s measured in degrees Kelvin, or K. 3,000 K or bright white is a whiter tone than what you’d want in a bedroom. In the bathroom, a whiter tone is good as it makes it easier to see your skin clearly and tends to complement your complexion.
Getting bathroom lighting wrong doesn’t just ruin the look and practicality of your space, it can really wreck your day. So, we hope these tips help.
See yourself in a better light
At FlowFix, we specialise in plumbing for bathroom renovations. We can transform your bathroom, making your home a better place to be. Our plumbing team can help you right from the planning stages. Take advantage of our end-to-end services. We can manage the entire renovation process from design to completion.
Bathroom renovations team
For great bathroom upgrade design advice call 027 265 4949. We can come and give you a plumbing quote for your bathroom renovation and give you some ideas on what we think might be great ways to move forward.