Your bedroom isn’t just the place where you go to sleep every night. It’s your personal space that’s used for everything from getting dressed for work to enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon watching the television to your personal gym. Although you perform lots of daily tasks in the bedroom, without the right lighting solutions, you’re going to have a tough time being able to see well enough to perform all of those said tasks. That’s where a good task lighting solution comes in handy. Use this guide to employing task lighting in your bedroom space and get the most out of your bedroom space.
Layered Lighting 101
While task lighting is great for doing-well, tasks-they’re not going to light your bedroom space all by themselves. You’ll need to layer lighting in the best possible configuration to really keep your bedroom well lit; no matter what the task is at hand.
There are five different types of layering you should worry about when lighting any bedroom area. A powerful ambient light source is recommended over the main area of the bedroom. Adding task lighting on either side of the bed or next to a makeup station or even over your dresser is a great way to layer lighting. Throw in a bit of natural lighting through windows and a few accent lights for your décor and you’ll have the perfect layered light fixture layout for any bedroom space.
Task Lighting Solutions
Not all task lighting has to look like the old fashioned desk lamps of yesteryear. Simple solutions like wall sconces over a headboard can not only serve as a great source of task lighting, but it can also become a part of the bedroom design theme with the perfect aesthetic fixture.
If you’re looking to hide rather than display your task lighting, track or monorail light fixtures work particularly well. These fixtures are affordable, easy to install and can be adjusted to shed light to any area within reach with ease from their ceiling support track. Monorail track lights have a curved track rather than a straight track and often hang suspended from the ceiling. This keeps the fixture up and out of the way while still showcasing its aesthetic qualities.
Task Lighting and the Ceiling Fan
Many times, the bedroom ceiling is only large enough to support just one light fixture and more often than not, this space is used by a ceiling fan. While many of these units have a single ballast light fixture for one or two bulbs, other models ( and light fixture replacement kits) have multiple bulbs that each face in a different direction. Many homeowners confuse these fixtures as a solution to task lighting but they couldn’t be more wrong.
Task lighting is defined by the fact that it can focus its beam on a particular task area-like a bedside or changing area. If you’re looking for a good ambient light source, a light fixture on your ceiling fan over your bed works fine. However, if you’re looking for a task light for your bedroom, it’s best to use another fixture that produces at least 800 lumens of light and is less than 4-feet away from the area you want to light.