Bathroom lighting basics

Going to the bathroom, we pursue not only hygienic goals, but also hope to relax, immersed in fragrant warm water. At the same time, the effect of water alone is not enough for complete relaxation.

In the interior of the room itself, there should be an atmosphere corresponding to the theme, which will be created not only by excellent decor, but also by the right lighting in the bathroom. Agree, a bright lamp on the ceiling, the light from which hits your eyes - this is not the best solution. It is also impossible to hang a sconce on the wall or limit yourself to newfangled built-in lighting, because in this room general lighting is necessary. So it turns out that when creating a comfortable environment in the bathroom, you cannot do without combined lighting.

Light in the bathroom: convenience

In almost all bathrooms, with rare exceptions, natural light is completely absent. The standards strongly recommend limiting yourself to a two-cartridge lamp, into which two fifty-watt lamps are screwed. But even this advice is often not carried out by us. In an effort to save money (it is not known on what), we put lighting structures in our bathrooms on one, but a hundred-watt lamp, and for some reason we manage to place it not even on the ceiling, but somewhere above the doors or on the wall, and do it in such a way that the luminous flux is directed either to the floor, or even to the mirror. With this method of lighting, comfort in the bathroom is out of the question in principle.

Let's try to understand the situation. These, more than modest, standards were once developed to illuminate an empty area, not burdened then with outlandish shower cabins, household appliances, sinks, curtains and furniture. A modern bathroom without such a set of items is simply unthinkable, which means that, whether you like it or not, you will have to deal with these shortcomings and design errors on your own.

Don't panic. Sufficient lighting can appear without grandiose or major reconstructions of the entire interior, but you cannot avoid cardinal changes when developing multi-level lighting. Be prepared for the fact that upgrading the lighting structures of even the smallest bathroom will require more effort and time from you than the same processes in any other, much larger room.

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Bathroom lighting: planning

You need to start these works with a clear scheme for organizing space. First of all, you will have to work on a room plan where everything that you decide to put in your bathroom will be placed in its place. Based on this, the lighting system will be thought out. You can't make mistakes here. Every miscalculation can cost you unreasonable hidden wiring in a freshly tiled wall.

Do not turn the bathroom into a realm of radiance and brilliance. There should be no extra lighting fixtures in it.Remember that the room has a specific microclimate and the occurrence of an unsafe situation in it is more than real. But for now, let's finish with safety precautions and consider how it is more convenient to plan the lighting specifically in your bathroom.

Ideally, the system should have 3 levels:

1. Ceiling.
2. Medium wall (at eye level).
3. Lower wall (not higher than 40 cm from the plinth).

If the area of ​​\u200b\u200byour bathroom is very small, you can refuse the last level, but it’s still worth organizing the other two.

ceiling lighting

This part of the lighting system is very important, because the light pouring from above is considered the main one. For its implementation, lamps are often used, referred to in the consumer environment as “pills”. They are loved for the safety of the design and the variety of the range. Plafonds of modern "pills" have the form:

1. Circle.
2. Oval.
3. Petal.
4. Leaves.
5. butterflies.
6. Heavenly bodies.
7. geometric shapes.

Each of these plafonds can become a worthy decoration of the ceiling and a high-quality decorative addition to the design. The main attention is on the number of such lamps. There should be two on the ceiling. The first is installed above the entrance and is used as the main source of light, the second is usually mounted above the font itself or a mirror.

spot lighting

This type of lighting in the bathroom is provided by small-sized lighting fixtures that are hidden in the walls and ceiling. Often the scheme of their location looks like some kind of repeating pattern. It can be an imitation of waves, correctly curved lines, even stripes, and more. Spotlights are incredibly aesthetic. They fit perfectly into any stylistic and interior solutions.

Indeed, a lot of tiny lights shining from the ceiling, neat, softly glowing balls framing a mirror or scattered along the perimeter of the walls are simply an incredible sight. The only, but rather significant, disadvantage of arranging hidden lighting is the need to build up surfaces, which, unfortunately, is not always possible to implement.

Specific designs

A popular type of specific lighting in the bathroom are wall structures. These devices are turned on only during the period when it is impossible to do without them. Basically, this load falls on sconces and other small designer lamps. Their main location is usually located near the mirror. Such lamps add comfort, because they really illuminate the face, and do not turn it into a shadow. With this type of lighting, it is more convenient for men to shave, for women it is more convenient to carry out cosmetic manipulations.

original solutions

“An effective way of lighting in the bathroom will be the equipment of a false window”

In order to make the bathroom well-lit, it is not at all necessary to use any standard approaches. It is perfectly acceptable to experiment with solutions.

• If you live in a private house, no one bothers you to equip a window in the bathroom. In addition to the fact that it will be unusual and beautiful, such a move will save on electricity, because during the day you will not have to turn on the light in the room.
• Equipping a false window will be an equally effective way of lighting in the bathroom. This method is often used in modern decors. How it's done? Yes, without much difficulty. A light box is attached to the wall, the surface of which is decorated with an image of nature, such a view from an alleged window. It can be a forest landscape, a painting with wild flowers, a three-dimensional photograph of a lake.Illumination from the inside gives the structure an original look, bringing it as close as possible to a full-fledged imitation of a window.
• You can organize the illumination of accessories and paintings. This is also a very common design technique that is in demand. Everything in the bathroom can be illuminated with multi-colored lamps that emit soft light green, pink, bluish light.

The proposed options for lighting in the bathroom - this is only a small part of the available options. In fact, there are just a lot of solutions. The main thing when choosing a method for organizing it is not to forget that the lighting should be of high quality and pleasant, and for this there is absolutely no need to overfill the space of the room with many expensive devices.

Your goal is to organize the play of additional light. At the same time, it should not interfere with high-quality lighting by the main devices and harmoniously synchronize the design of the common space with the situation. Only with this approach, a morning shower in the bathroom will truly invigorate, and an evening bath will relax. High-quality light is not only a way to fight darkness, but also an impact on your emotional state, so the better the lighting is organized, the more positive you will get from being in the room.

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Light in space zoning

“In order to achieve the best result, it is better to remove the font from the rest of the plumbing and organize special lighting in the bathroom for this area”

Perhaps the main focus of the bathroom interior is a mirror. Regardless of the shape, size and design, the mirror manages to grab our attention without any problem. And what are the requirements for this magnificent accessory? Naturally, truthfulness, and reflection without glare and distortion is possible only with well-planned lighting in the bathroom.

In the case when, when planning the ceiling lighting above the mirror, the location of the lamp was already provided, you just have to add a pair of sconces on its sides. The stream of light pouring from the ceiling, in this case, should be bright, but not blinding. This means that the lamp should emit diffused light. To get the desired effect, a lampshade made of frosted glass or white plastic can help. Why exactly white? Because colored shades in the mirror area are guaranteed to distort the displayed image. As for the sconces, symmetrically located on the sides of the mirror surface, they should give evenly distributed streams of light without obvious light and shade transitions.

Another way to evenly illuminate the space in the bathroom and the directly shining mirror surface will be built-in lighting. It is good if the mirror is illuminated by such lamps around the entire perimeter.

You can uniformly illuminate the mirror area with a device horizontally located above the mirror. The light source in this case is mounted at a height of two meters.

Illumination of the mirror zone can be performed by a variety of lamps:

1. Luminescent.
2. With filament.
3. Halogen.
4. LED.

You can mount lamps not only near the mirror, but also directly on it. In this case, there will be no need to drill a mirror sheet. You can attach the structure with a special adhesive composition.

We have already mentioned that taking a bath is more relaxing than hygienic, but in order to achieve the best result, it is better to remove the font from the rest of the plumbing and organize special lighting in the bathroom for this area.

Today, models of bathtubs with autonomous lighting are on sale. It should be noted that such a decision in the decor looks incredibly impressive. If you are the owner of an unremarkable bath, then you will have to carry out:

1. Highlighting a zone with a beam of directional light. This technique will allow you to concentrate on the illuminated area, while the rest of the room will be immersed in twilight.
2. Above the bathroom, you can hang a sconce with a beautiful lampshade made of pieces of colored glass or a real stained glass window. If the design of the lamp is two-position, and the lampshades on it are colorless, then zoning is performed by emitting lamps of different types of color glow, which must be turned on not only simultaneously, but also separately.
   

   candle shaped wall sconces

3. Lighting in the decor of a spacious bathroom with an overhanging ceiling uses such a technique as grouping lamps of different colors in a given sector. Thus, each zone is painted in its own specific color. It should be taken into account that in this context there is no place for the play of contrasts, that is, zone colors should harmoniously flow into each other.
4. A floor lamp on a high stand with an original colored lampshade will help to beautifully illuminate the water surface.

In principle, a lighting device can appear above each plumbing element, as long as it is functionally justified.

It would be nice to illuminate the part of the bathroom where household appliances are collected. If the appliances are in close proximity to the mirror, then this is a good reason to install an additional adjustable lamp. Its design may contain several closed elements, which will help you direct the light flux directly to the desired area.

In the setting of a modern bathroom, they always try to equip niches and fill the space with many drawers. In order not to run every time for a flashlight, without which it is simply impossible to find the right thing, you should take care of the appearance of specific lighting in the bathroom ahead of time. A real miracle of modern technology has become small flashlights, fireflies, running simply on batteries. They give enough light to explore hidden corners and turn on with a light touch of the hand. Also, these devices will become indispensable even if you store something under the bathroom.

Since the predominant materials in bathroom decoration are glossy surfaces - mirrors, tiles, glass, metal, then the exterior of the lamps should contain at least some shiny elements. It is great if the body of the device will have gilding or chrome plating. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, it is also practical, since moisture will not corrode the metal hiding under the coating.

In the lighting in the bathroom, the issue of safety is also important.. In this regard, it makes sense to use LEDs more widely in the interior, which today have a more than attractive appearance, as well as twelve-volt lamps, when touched, it is also impossible to get an electric shock.

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light highlights

Modern bathroom interiors are increasingly meeting us with stretch ceilings with photo printing. Known technologies and a variety of materials make it possible to imitate scatterings of shining dew drops or a starry sky. This type of lighting in the bathroom can hardly be classified as functional, rather its role is exclusively decorative.

Another chic decorative element will be luminous compositions in the form of marine fish, drop-down shells with pearls, hiding in coral thickets and similar exotics. These products made of gypsum-polymer materials are placed in well-arranged niches located in non-functional walls. It is clear that such delights are the prerogative of spacious rooms.

The lower tier of lighting is very convenient to arrange using ordinary garden lamps, which can be in the form of lanterns or themed figurines.This type of fixtures can be mounted permanently or left mobile. This lighting decor looks great, but again, it can only appear in large bathrooms.

Perhaps we managed to reveal as much as possible all the main points that will help you equip a really colorful and practical lighting in the bathroom.

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Photo gallery - lighting in the bathroom:

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