Bathroom Light Fixture Guide

Bathroom Light Fixtures

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Bathroom light fixtures are what takes a bathroom from a boring toilet room to a place that feels like it’s a part of your home.  With careful planning and preparation, you can have a bathroom that looks like the ones you see in home and garden magazines.

Bathrooms are the most commonly looked over area in the home by my clients.  Most people just don’t think to invest in bathroom light fixtures, and this leaves that area of the house feeling forgotten and unattended.  Bathrooms are beginning to play a more important role in the home, as multi-head showers and saunas are being installed, but many people are forgetting the importance of lighting and its effect on the entire room.

A bathroom lighting fixture is much more than the light that goes above the mirror.  There are many delicate things that happen in bathroom, things like shaving and putting on makeup need quality light to be done as well as they can be.  A simple plan of where the light shines and how it should look will help you transform your bathroom to extraordinary levels.

When planning your bathroom lighting fixtures, careful attention must be paid to angles and positions of the lights.  Think of the mirror like a flash on a camera, and how harsh and direct light can create sharp shadows on the face.  This type of lighting is going to make shaving and makeup very difficult.  A bathroom vanity light fixture should be above the mirror with bulbs that all the light to shine down.  For increased quality of light, fixtures should be on the sides of the mirror as well.

Choosing the correct bulbs is also very important.  My family is very energy-conscious and uses compact fluorescent lights all throughout our house, except in the bathroom.  CFL bulbs cause the skin to appear very yellow, so we use halogen bulbs that give off a great balance of white light, and last a very long time.  Most bathroom light fixtures are a series of lights that require multiple bulbs.  This can be a major drain on the power meter, so use the lowest voltage light you can.  60 watt bulbs are usually too dim for single use, but when there are 4-5 of them they can be very effective at lighting a large area.

Master bathrooms should always be equipped with a dimmer for the main lights.  This offers the ultimate lighting control and can turn a bathroom from a place to do your “business” to a romantic and relaxing getaway.  Dimmers are surprisingly easy to install, and can be done by the average weekend-warrior who understands how to turn off power to the switch, in just a few minutes.

Bathroom lighting is what makes a bathroom feel like it’s part of the home, and the proper light fixtures are key to making it happen.

Brushed Nickel Bathroom Lighting

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Brushed nickel bathroom lighting is one of the cleanest and simplest ways to decorate your bathroom.  I say cleanest because it’s a look that goes great in just about any bathroom, without a lot of the fuss and pomp that most bathroom lighting has.  In this post I want to share some shopping tips that I’ve learned from my years designing bathrooms so that you can make a smart decision when you buy yours.

The key when shopping for these, whether they’re brushed nickel bathroom lights or not, is to find something that is going to jive with the rest of your home.  You really don’t want your guests to feel like they’ve left your home and ended up in someone else’s when they step into the bathroom.

You might be thinking that you don’t have brushed nickel lights anywhere else in your home, how are they going to work in the bathroom?  That’s the beauty of these!  They don’t necessarily have to match materials with your other lighting choices, but they should be similar in shape and design.  The brushed nickel look works in every bathroom, you just need to decide on the design.

What bathroom light works best?  The shape and size of your bathroom will determine which light fixtures work best for you, but there are some common themes.  Small bathrooms can get away with only having one brushed nickel bathroom light fixture, usually above the mirror.  The size of the mirror or vanity will determine how large of a fixture that you need.  A long double vanity might need two fixture, or one really long one.  Two fixtures costs more money up front, but they use less light bulbs than really long ones, so you’ll save money over time in energy and replacement costs.  If your bathroom is a shape other than rectangle or square, you’re going to need to provide some light for those corners.  A bathroom ceiling light would work best for lighting a small space around a corner.

Shopping for brushed nickel bathroom lighting isn’t a tough task, but when you have a good idea of what you need before you decide which one you want you’re going to make a better decision!

What Makes One Bathroom Mirror Light So Much More Expensive Than Another?

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When you’re shopping for a new bathroom mirror light it’s really easy to become overwhelmed by the huge disparities in prices between lights that really look very similar.  In this post I want to show you why that happens so you can find the mirror light that fits best into your budget and your home.

To best answer this question, we have to first look at some very similar situations.  Why does a designer suit or dress cost more than a generic brand?  The main reason is the brand alone “demands” those kinds of prices, but there are some other things.  Designer brands generally use higher quality materials, fit you better, and even pay their employees more money.

For some, these qualities (along with the status) are very important when shopping for a suit or dress, but does it really matter when it comes to bathroom mirror lights?  I have to say that it really doesn’t.  I deal with bathroom light fixtures for a living and I probably wouldn’t be able to tell if you lied to me and said that yours were Kimball & Young.  There is almost always a cheaper version when it comes to bathroom lights, and no one but you will know!

Craftsmanship is obviously important when it comes to mirror lights for the bathroom, but so is your budget.  The key is to find something that you can afford and be happy with.  Bathroom light fixtures don’t take much abuse (aside from natural disasters) in their lives so you can probably get away with a less expensive and lower quality brand, as long as you’re happy with its lighting and design.

I’ve been doing this for a long time and have always been encouraging clients to choose what fits their budget instead of their status (in nicer words than that!).  Your bathroom, and it’s lights, should look great but not at the cost of having to hold back in other areas of your life.

Do You Need New Fixtures To Improve Bathroom Vanity Lighting?

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You don’t always need new fixtures to improve bathroom vanity lighting.  There are quite a few things you can do to improve what you already have.  In this post I want to share some tips to get the most from existing bathroom light fixtures, and how to shop for new ones if you choose to.

If you’ve read other posts on this site you’ve probably come across the idea that dirty bathroom lights are the cause of many remodeling jobs.  I know that many people just want to change their bathroom vanity lights because they want something new, but when it comes to actually improving the amount and quality of light you might be able to get away with what’s already there.  The mixture of shower steam, hairspray, makeup, and other bathroom products leaves a gnarly film on the vanity lights.  Many times it takes an industrial degreaser to get that many years worth of goo off, but if that sounds like your bathroom this is the best first step.  Take off the globe (the glass around the bulb) and really clean, I mean really clean it!  Oh, you thought it was supposed to be off-white?  Yeah, sorry it was just filthy.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to berate you for not having a clean home, it’s just that nobody cleans the vanity light fixtures when they’re scrubbing the shower and toilets.

Deciding to install new vanity light fixtures is a pretty big decision because it usually means that you have to upgrade everything else around it so everything matches.  It’s like getting a brand new entertainment center and still having your giant, rabbit eared box of a TV sitting there.  You’re going to want to swap out the shower curtain, towels, and maybe even the faucet and hardware.  With that in mind, be sure that you really want new bathroom vanity lighting before going shopping.

Shopping for new fixtures is a fairly straightforward process on the surface, but rather complex when you’re actually looking at the plethora of light selections available.  You want vanity lights that will blend in with the rest of the designs in your home.  To get the full scoop on how to do this, be sure to read my post on how to choose bathroom lighting fixtures.

Bathroom vanity lighting shouldn’t be rocket science, so I’ve tried to make the decisions as clear as possible.  Clean and polish what you already have to see if you can get more life out of it, or be ready for a full shopping experience and bathroom makeover with new fixtures.

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