When it comes to designing your bedroom, good lighting can make all the difference. Cleverly placed lighting can make a room feel bigger, warmer and more luxurious. Bad lighting, however, can make a bedroom feel cold and soulless.
If you're thinking about lighting your bedroom more strategically, adding lamps is often a great place to start. But choosing the right lamps is only half the battle – where you put them can make just as much difference.
We spoke to Lisa Hensby, Founder & Creative Director of Lisa Hensby Design & Build Studio about where to position your lamps if you want to make a small bedroom look bigger, brighter and more luxurious.
Where to position your lamps in a small bedroom
First things first, Lisa says that there is one key thing you mustn't do – and that's rely solely on one pendant to light the room.
'The quickest way to make a small bedroom feel smaller is to light it with one pendant in the middle of the ceiling. It flattens everything and pushes the corners into shadow, and a room with dark corners always reads as smaller than it is,' Lisa explains.
Instead, she recommends turning your attention to wall lights. 'I'd start with a pair of wall lights either side of the bed rather than table lamps, fixed a little higher than feels natural, roughly 1.1m off the floor or just above your shoulder when you're sitting up,' she says.
There are two clear reasons for this, Lisa explains. 'It clears the bedside tables completely, which instantly calms a space, and the light lands on the wall rather than on the surface, so the wall glows and quietly recedes. Anything that pulls your eye outwards makes a room feel wider,' she says.
From there, it's all about layering the light and drawing the eye to different areas of the room. 'Put a lamp in the corner furthest from the door, on a chest of drawers or a slim console. We look towards the brightest point in a room, so lighting the far corner draws your eye into the deepest part of the space and the room reads as longer,' she says.
Finally, Lisa recommends putting some lighting closer to the floor. 'Add something low: a floor lamp beside a chair, or a small lamp on a shelf. Three points of light at different heights make the difference between a room that feels considered and a room that's simply been lit.'
Repositioning your lamps is a clever way to make your space feel larger and that bit more luxe. Who said you needed to knock down a wall or buy inordinately expensive furniture? Sometimes, simply giving your room a reshuffle will do the trick.
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The Lighting Edit
