A bedroom is a medium-to-large room designed mainly to house a bed and provide sleeping arrangements. Since sleep often entails a change of clothing, the bedroom usually features storage for clothes, including closets and chests of drawers.

Furniture may also include a dresser with mirror to assist in preparations, nightstands either side of the bed, and perhaps a comfortable chair for reading or to assist with dressing. The main focus of the room is comfortable sleep and transitioning between sleep and daily activity.

The Lighting you'll need in a Bedroom

The bedroom features one or more beds, storage areas for clothing and toys, seating and dressing furniture, and room to walk around. People will be sitting and standing as well as laying down. Adapting your lighting choices to how people will use the room is important.

Overhead ceiling lights are important for lighting up a bedroom. Leave enough headroom in the areas where people will be walking, so that they can walk underneath the light fixtures. An easy way to do this is to put the main light over the bed.
Chandeliers and pendants can be mounted as ceiling lights, provided you have enough headroom. You'll need either higher ceilings or place the fixtures over the bed. Pendants or small chandeliers can be hung over nightstands at the sides of the bed.
Semi-flush or flush-mounted lights mount close to the ceiling and give ample headroom below. One or two fixtures mounted fairly centrally should provide strong overhead lighting.
Recessed "pot" lights can be recessed into the ceiling. They take up no room height and give a modern look. Several will be needed since each usually features only one light bulb and lights only a local area.
Wall sconces can be added to the bedroom walls in a larger bedroom, especially near doors or behind seating areas. They can be used to create a softer ambient mood or used in concert with other light fixtures.
Portable lamps such as table lamps, floor lamps and reading lamps place light at an ideal height for sitting, reading and relaxing. Ideal next to or behind seating or sleeping areas, they can be switched on and off independently from the main lighting. Table lamps are popular either side of the bed while a reading lamp or floor lamp is great next to a chair.
Use a desk lamp if you have a desk area, and consider buffet lamps if you have a narrow side table or buffet.
Add a ceiling fan to help with ventilation, heating and cooling. They can be placed over the bed to help cool off in summer. Some fans also include light fixtures so can act as a central light. If the fan is not placed over the bed, make sure there is enough headroom to walk below.
Accent lighting can be added. For example spot lights can shine focused light in a specific direction, to e.g. light up a piece of wall art or furniture. Accent lamps can add decorative touches of gentle light. And can lights can give an interesting upward-pointing light, mounted on the floor.

bedroom lighting and lamps

The use of Lighting in your Bedroom

The main function of your lighting should be to help people to see in the dark, especially in the evening and at night. A bedroom often features dimmer light for a more romantic mood, or evening light for soft reading. But make sure there is also a bright main light for when you need it.

Also consider where in the room people will spend the most time and what they will be doing there. Will they be sitting in certain areas? Laying down? Moving around? Needing to read or write or work in detail? Will they be focusing on things close to themselves or at a distance?

Ambient Lighting is when the light is bright and spreads out in generally all directions, lighting up most of the room. Ambient light can also be background light. It is less focused and more diffused. Ceiling lights and wall lights can create ambient lighting.
Task Lighting is when the light is more focused into a smaller area, possibly aimed in its direction, and is used when performing tasks. Such as when reading a book or applying makeup, you'll need light fixtures or lamps nearby so that you can see what you're doing.
Accent Lighting comes from small accents of light generally in the background. This are the finishing touches such as small novelty lamps, can lights, spot lights, accent lamps and other decorative lighting. The amount of light output is usually less and limited to a smaller area. A night light is also useful for a bedroom.

bedroom light fixtures

Where to put Lighting in a Bedroom

Main Light Fixtures

In a bedroom you'll likely want one or two main light fixtures, positioned fairly centrally in the room. These could be chandeliers, pendant lights, semi-flush mount lights, flush-mount lighting, or ceiling fans with lights

Try to take advantage of placing light over the bed. Another popular lighting idea for a bedroom is to hang pendant lights over side tables or nightstands, either side of the bed. If there is room for a small table or desk, consider a small chandelier over it.

If the room is longer than square, consider breaking it up into sections like separate rectangles, with one light in the center of each. Centrally positioned lights will emit light in all directions and light up most of the room.

Secondary Light Fixtures

To complement the main light fixture and provide additional layers and levels of light, adding a couple of wall sconces on a wall near to seating can be useful. Small pendants can hang over nightstands, desks or dressers. Also swing-arm wall lights work well next to the bed.

Also consider floor lamps, torchieres or reading lamps. These give off brighter light than other lamps and work well next to a chair or in the corner of a bedroom.

Task Light Fixtures

Often in a bedroom you'll see table lamps, which work well positioned at the sides of the bed. When a person lays in bed they can benefit from the local light to help with tasks such as reading. An alternative is a reading lamp, which is a type of floor lamp designed to help with reading. Another option for the bedside is a pendant light fixture.

If you have other small areas which occasionally need bright light, such as a dresser, consider a desk lamp or a floor lamp nearby. Table lamps also work well at the sides of a room as more of a background light for a more relaxed mood with less brightness.

Consider eyesight and glare

When placing lighting in a bedroom, remember that light comes from a light bulb in most cases. The light may or may not be covered in all directions. For example, a light over the bed will need to have a covered shade to avoid glare when laying down. This is why table lamps beside the bed are a good idea because they shield the eyes from glare.

Think about what direction the light will shine and what the line of sight will be. You might benefit from an overhead light when needed, but you may not want it shining in your face when laying in bed.

bedroom lighting ideas

How much Lighting does your Bedroom need?

The amount of light needed in a bedroom is usually at a high level compared to other rooms. Also the size of the room and the natural lighting coming in through windows will affect the amount of light needed.

Light is best measured in lumens, which is a measure of how much light reaches a surface at a given distance. In general it means "brightness" in a standardized way. You'll need to calculate an idea of how much light you want in the room, and then try to aim to achieve this across your light fixtures and lamps.

A general approach is as follows:

Measure the length and width of the room in feet..
Multiply the two numbers to get the "square feet".
Multiply the square feet by the amount of lumens needed per square foot for the room - for a bedroom this is 70-80 lumens per square foot.

For example in an 11 x 12 foot bedroom:

11 x 12 = 132square feet.
132 x 70 = 9240 total lumens on the low end.
132 x 80 = 10560 lumens on the high end.

In terms of light bulbs: A single 60-watt incandescent light bulb outputs about 800 lumens. If you were using purely 60-watt bulbs, you'd need at least e.g. 9240 / 800 = 11.5 light bulbs minimally, up to 10560 / 800 = 13.2 bulbs maximally. So roughly 11 to 13 light bulbs at 60 watts each would be needed for a bedroom.

bedroom lighting fixtures