Designing A Stylish, Yet Functional Lighting Plan For Your BATHROOM
October 23, 2020
Your bathroom is a high functioning and important room in your home, it’s complex from all design and construction perspectives and requires a lot of thought to get right. Unfortunately, light is often overlooked in the design process, beyond the selection of decorative lights that enhance the interior design.
The biggest complaint we hear - from nearly every client we see is “I can’t see my face properly in the bathroom mirror we have now”.
Why is that?
It’s quite simple really - 99% of home bathrooms are lit from the centre of the room - either from an old oyster light, or a couple of pancake downlights. By placing the light in the centre of the room, the floor tiles look great - but all of that light is behind your head! So as soon as you look to the mirror for your reflection, your head creates a pool of shadow in the light.
We’ve already shared our thoughts on how to light your mirror right - head over to our MIRROR Blog to read more.
But in this blog we’re looking at the rest of the bathroom and how we inject texture, and levels of light into this high traffic area of your home.
Recently we completed a series of renders, demonstrating the behaviour of different lighting effects in a single bathroom. Our renders are all about how the light performs and are created using actual performance data for light fittings.
We start with - a standard lighting plan for a bathroom.
Standard lighting plan for a bathroom.
Standard lighting plan for a bathroom.
You can see a standard array of 4 downlights in this bathroom - which looks OK in an image, but if you look closer, you can see how flat the room would feel. The floor tiles end up being the hero - and whilst we often choose beautiful floor tiles for our bathrooms, putting direct light on them does not increase their feature element. Functionality wise, this bathroom works right? - well that is until you want to see your face in the mirror - or use the loo in the middle of the night and have to turn on all those lights to navigate the room, waking you right up! Possibly you like unwind and take a bath, but the glare of 4 downlights would definitely make it an unpleasant experience….yes, you can light a candle!
But layered lighting will have the greatest impact on your bathroom, by combining the brightness and function you need for putting on makeup in the mirror [or kids bath time], to highlighting feature elements [like your wall tiles] and then being able to pare it all back to create a relaxing environment for adult bath time.
Crafting the right light in this space means that you can change the mood and function of the room at the flick of a switch…..and below is how we might design this bathroom lighting at MINT
Same room - with a MINT Lighting Design…
Bathroom with light that has been designed for aesthetics as well as function by MINT
Bathroom with light that has been designed for aesthetics as well as function by MINT
With this design we’ve created texture, light and shade to bring visual interest to the space, making it feel more like a stylish resort.
Start with the mirror - you can see a slender bar light, pushing lovely diffuse light down the face of the mirror, ensuring you can see everything without glare or shadow. Of course, sometimes we really don’t need to see all the detail of our face in the bathroom. So the other layers of light are critical to making the space inviting, without blasting your eyes with light.
We have light hidden under the vanity, which produces a perfect low level of light for a night time visit to the loo or the up-light so you’re not “IN THE SPOTLIGHT”. Over the back we push light up the wall from the floor, to provide you with enough lighting for a relaxing bath….you can enjoy a darkened room for your long soak in the tub - but still have enough light to read a book.
Some folk prefer higher levels of light for the shower, so we’ve grazed the wall with linear LED strip lighting- which will highlight the feature tiles as well as bringing high functioning light to the shower - again without shadows.
Finally, the decorative elements……beautiful glass pendants - safely located outside the Bath Zones and adding a touch of drama, sparkle or a spray texture around the room, the effect it creates will depend on what pendant style you select. We’ve also added a little, strip lighting in the wall niche above the bath, which can double as a decorative element, plus also provide another option for a functional nightlight, or add a little extra while relaxing in the bath. We find many folk add this type of niche to the shower area also and the touch of light can assist them in navigating the difference between shampoo, conditioner and other products.
The same room again, with a completely different MINT design…
Bathroom with light that has been designed for aesthetics as well as function by MINT
Bathroom with light that has been designed for aesthetics as well as function by MINT
This lighting design is a little more dramatic….we’ve taken out the linear strip lighting, which was pushing down the wall near the shower and instead opted for up-lighting at both ends of the bathroom for general light. These fixtures effectively treat the whole room as a light fitting by bouncing light off the ceiling and creating brightness, plus a perception of size and space…useful light, with an uplifting sensation.
We’ve gone for serious mirror lighting - critical if you need a lot of light for shaving or makeup - and these lights can be arranged and adjusted to reflect perfectly out of the mirror - or directly to your face - to make sure you can really see what you’re doing. Then if those functional mirror lights aren’t in play, [turned off] we have a halo of light around the mirror and light under the vanity for soft illumination.
The light grazing down the far wall is ideal if you’ve selected textured tiles and want to make them come to life at night. Then finally, we have left the light in the niche, which is great for a styled vignette - or as I mentioned as equally useful for low level lighting when you’re enjoying a long soak.
Not every solution is appropriate to every bathroom…
The purpose of these renders is to allow you to see how changing the location of a light fitting and by also using different types of fittings in a bathroom, can really impact on the overall design.
We’ve used light grazing walls - up and down, high functioning up-lights, diffuse linear LED strip in the ceiling, light under floating vanities, light in niches and pendants. By incorporating these lighting effects in a couple of combinations, we craft a bright space, with comfortable light that doesn’t make you think of the surgical suite at your local hospital.
But not all these solutions are appropriate for every bathroom, and your bathroom may need a completely different lighting design approach - but you can see how the light transforms the look and feel of a bathroom and provides every layer of light for all activities.
With bathrooms becoming larger and more elaborate, proper lighting is essential to making the most of the space - so don’t leave your light to chance, take the time to consider how you want to feel and function in your bathroom at different times of the day. By putting as much thought into your lighting design as you do the tiles and tap ware, you will end up with a bathroom that inspires - every day.
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