When designing the lighting of the home, it is common to have your bathroom rather low in your ranking of importance. This is because traditional bathrooms feature small spacing and little room for fixtures. You might plan to save costs by ignoring your bathroom lighting and fixtures, but the truth is that when it comes to the lighting of interiors, your bathroom is one of the most important rooms.
Simply put, you spend a lot of time in your bathroom. For most people, you would start and end your day in the bathroom. Investing in bathroom lighting can help lift your mood and make your day brighter.
Plan Your Bathroom Lighting
The first and most important thing to do in any form of designing your home is planning. A proper plan will help to choose the kind of fixtures to be used while considering available resources and space.
Firstly, you have to take into consideration the amount of natural light available. If your bathroom space is small, dark and poorly lit - you would need more light. For people with bigger spaces and windows ushering in natural lights, less is more.
The lumens of light you would need to depend on the square footage. It is advised to aim for 50lumens per square foot to achieve a daylight vibe.
Consider Task Lighting
Task lighting targets illumination at specific areas in your bathroom where you get tasks done. Some of the areas you can use task lighting are:
Shower Lighting
For overhead lighting, use just one overhead light for a single shower, and two for a double shower. If you use a walk-in door shower, you can use recessed lighting, but ensure it is a damp or moisture-rated fixture.
Vanity Lighting
Consider the size of your vanity and the amount of light in the room before selecting your vanity lighting design.
For a room with double vanity but little natural light, you should focus on bright and exposed lights. However, for space with just one vanity, but placed right next to a source of light like a window, you can use a fixture with less light.
For more elegance, throw in sconces. Sconces can help illuminate your space if they're placed right at the sides of your mirrors. You could also place a lighting fixture above your mirror, however, be careful to avoid harsh overhead lights that could lead to shadowing.
Ambience Lighting
Consider lighting directed towards illuminating the entire space. Your ambient light should reflect on all areas of the room. It should leave no dark corners, and brighten the entire space. You may need to consider the size of your space to determine the number of light lumens you need.
The most common way to light up the whole room is by using ceiling lights. Ceiling lights have a variety of options ranging from recessed lights to pendant lights.
Recessed Lights
Throw in some recessed lights in your space. They brighten up the whole room without leaving shadow casts. The rule of thumb is to divide the ceiling height by two to determine how much space should be between lights. For example, you could use lights 3 feet apart for a six-foot ceiling.
Pendant Lights
Should you have a large space, it may be nice to use a beautiful chandelier or pendant. It would have such an amazing effect on the space.
Flush Mount Lights
A flush mount light is usually a good idea in your space. Consider using a drum flush mount with exposed lighting.
Carefully Select Bulb Types And Wattage
Selecting the perfect bulb types may be tricky if you're not familiar with buying them. If you want energy-saving and long-lasting bulbs, LEDs are your best bet. You could also use standard incandescent bulbs and CFLs. However, you must pay attention to the watt and colours of the bulb.
For ambient lights, you should know that the size of the room determines how much watt is required.
For task lighting, 45 watts is sufficient for a small room. For bigger rooms, you should try to get 75-100watts brightness.
Bulb colours are also very important. If you take pictures or do your make-up in the bathroom, buy bulbs with a colour rendering index of at least 90. You should also look for a temperature of between 2700k and 3000k.
Dimmers
Dimmers are a very important feature in any bathroom. It would be bad to walk into the bathroom half-awake and have bright light hurting your eyes. Dimmers soften the brightness of the lights for early morning and late-night activities. They set a beautiful mood or ambience, especially in the evenings for a relaxing or romantic time.
Bathroom Lighting Zones
It is important to follow due precautions when installing lighting fixtures in the bathroom. Experts divide the bathroom into different zones, each with different IP rated fittings.
IP Rated Fittings
IP rates let us know how much protection our light fixtures have against water and moisture.
Zone Zero
These are areas inside the bath or shower. The light fittings used in this zone have low voltage and are IP67 rated.
Zone One
The components in this zone offer protection against vertically dripping water. This zone is directly above the bath or shower up to 2.25 meters from the floor (splash-proof light fixtures). At least an IP44 rating is required in this zone but an IP65 rating is recommended for safety reasons.
Zone Two
This area is about 0.6meters (60cm) radius around the bathtub or shower and up to 2.25m in height. It covers the splash-proof light fixtures. It also covers the washbasin area and requires an IP44 rated light fitting.
