Bathroom lighting is essential. This is usually the first room we enter in the morning, setting the mood for the rest of the day. It is also the room we enter when we are half asleep in the middle of the night.
Washing, putting on makeup, shaving, grooming, and taking medicine are just a few of the daily routines in the bathroom. There is no other room in the home where optimizing both daylighting (exterior natural light) and illumination (light bulbs) is more critical.
Daylight is important to our overall health and emotions, as it sets our circadian rhythms (how natural light affects and resets our body clock and consciousness). Lighting is essential for our safety (80% of all falls among older adults occur in the bathroom) and personal hygiene.
Natural lighting
Nothing comes close to beating the warmth, beauty, and emotional value of windows and skylights. These brighten your mood by helping you feel more refreshed and energized. They make a smaller bathroom seem so much bigger. They also have the added value of fresh air and help reduce humidity levels (high humidity levels can create harmful levels of mold and bacteria and destroy your walls and ceilings).
Windows provide free, energy-efficient, and cost-effective lighting and ventilation. They are actually good for you. Daily exposure to natural light has been shown in several leading studies to improve mental and physical well-being, increase concentration and energy levels, and offer a variety of other unexpected benefits.
Multiple windows allow you to balance natural light, cross ventilation, and “open” the bathroom to the outside. Larger windows may have bottom-up or top-down blinds for added privacy. The windows can also be opened in various combinations. Skylights, especially the tube type, offer tremendous opportunities for natural light in small spaces where a traditional window is impractical. A 10″ tube skylight lets in at least 5-10 times more light than a typical 2×3 sliding bathroom window.
Turning on
Recessed lights, especially LEDs, are great for adding task lighting to the general space, including the toilet. Recessed LED lighting on a dimmer is best for most bathrooms. It’s always better to “over light” and use dimmers to adjust. Never use fluorescent lights, the bathroom is not a warehouse.
A light over the bath and shower is ideal for providing mood and grooming lighting. Shaving your legs is so much easier when you have overhead lighting.
For vanity areas, wall sconces mounted on top or sides of the mirror are best. This removes shadows on the face, making makeup application much easier and gives definition when applying lines. The combination of wall sconces and recessed lighting within the vanity area solves shadow and homework concerns. Doing makeup and hair is much easier when the two are combined.
Always use multiple switches and dimmers for lighting. This permit has a wide range of possibilities for everyone who uses the bathroom. Everyone has different needs and the value of doing this cannot be stressed enough.
An LED receptacle-type photocell night light is perfect in the toilet. It is ideal when using the facility at night without having to turn on bedroom lights, blinding you and waking your partner.
For LED lighting, color temperature and lumens are very important. Temperature does not refer to degrees. Rather, it refers to the color: reddish to sky blue. Lumens refer to the amount of visible light, or brightness. Compared to incandescent bulbs, LED lighting uses 70-90% less energy, saves a tremendous amount of money over its lifetime, lasts up to 25 times longer (23 years or more), and helps protect the environment ambient.
