The best wetroom lighting can take any bathroom to the next level. With the right combination of brightness, bulb types and positioning, you can create your perfect atmosphere. You’d be surprised by how much your experience can change by the type of lighting you have.
Learn to light right with these wetroom lighting tips.
Types of Wetroom Lighting
Bathroom and wetroom lighting falls into four categories: task lighting, accent lighting, decorative lighting, and ambient lighting. Each type of lighting serves a specific purpose and the key to excellent wetroom lighting is to create the perfect balance of all four aspects.
1. Task Lighting
Task lighting is bright, direct and creates clear illumination in order for you to perform tasks, such as washing your face, shaving or applying makeup. Task lighting is often targeted to one place, such as a mirror, or over a sink. It may not light the whole room, but for the focused lighting you need for those often fiddly tasks, it can be a huge help.
2. Accent Lighting
Accent lighting is strategically placed in order to highlight a feature in your wetroom. For example, you can accent floating wetroom shelves by using underlighting. Accent lighting can also be a different colour to better blend into your overall aesthetic. Since the idea of accent lighting is to just offset certain features within your wetroom, use it sparingly. For accent lighting, less is definitely more.
3. Decorative Lighting
Decorative lighting is not all that useful as a light source. Instead, it serves to colour or veil your wetroom in shades and patterns of light. This adds an extra dimension to your wetroom design, injecting it with some style and class. Some decorative lighting can be art pieces, others could be as simple as fairy lights in a jar. Like accent lighting, you want to be subtle in your use of decorative lighting.
4. Ambient Lighting
When you just need lots of light, ambient light is ideal and can be created both naturally and artificially. Depending on your location and the design of your wetroom, a large window and an open-plan layout allows lots of natural ambient light to fill the space. In wetrooms with taller ceilings, ambient lighting fixtures can be installed along the perimeter of the space, subtly placed and available when needed.
Pulling it all together
Getting the lighting right is essential to a well-designed wetroom. Some wetrooms don’t have as much access to natural light as other rooms in the house, so getting the lighting right is more important here than it is in other rooms. You can make better use of all these types of lighting by using dimmers to control the intensity and mirrors to reflect light throughout your wetroom.
Place your task lighting in flattering places around your mirrors. Overhead task lighting should be avoided because it creates obscuring shadows on your face. Instead, place task lighting evenly at the sides of your mirror. To provide the clearest light, LED bulbs are ideal for task lighting.
Accent lighting can double as a night light when placed under fixtures and cupboards. Not only does this allow you to show off your wetroom furniture, it allows you to move around your bathroom at night without waking anyone up by switching on the main light. LEDs are again a good choice for accent lighting, but softer, yellow light can also be effective, depending on the look and feel you’d like to create.
Light strips on large mirrors above your sink vanities offer functional task lighting. Dimmer switches for overhead lighting can adjust the levels of ambient light in the wetroom, allowing you to adjust the mood of the bathroom accordingly. Wall sconces and feature hangings offer additional ambient and decorative light. Large mirrors effectively reflect all of these layered light sources for the best effect.
Lighting is often overlooked when designing a wetroom. It’s so easy to get distracted with tile choices, taps and shower heads that lighting ends up as an unfortunate afterthought. But to get the best looking wetroom, start thinking about lighting from the start and incorporate it naturally into your design. Just make sure that you consult a qualified electrician when undertaking any electrical installations in your wetroom.
