Bathrooms can be dark for all sorts of reasons.  They may have poor lighting, dark paint on the walls, or just an overall dingy feeling that makes it feel dark.  It’s important that you tackle the dark “feel” before you tackle the actual lighting problem.  It’s cheaper than upgrading light fixtures, and may solve your problem completely.

Bright bathrooms don’t necessarily have more lights than dark bathrooms do, but what they have is a lot of reflection in the small space.  Light colored walls and spaces contribute to this.  If you rent your house/apartment there isn’t much you can do about the color of the walls, but you can change out some of the other stuff.  Dark colors absorb light and light ones reflect it, so take a look at things like your shower curtain and towels to see if their sucking the light out of your room.  Replace them with light colors like white or yellow to brighten the whole room up.

Cleaning your bathroom is important as well.  I’m not talking about wiping the pee off the toilet seat, I mean taking stuff off of the walls and really scrubbing it down.  That means the glass on the light fixture, the shower curtain rod,  and wiping down the walls.  In many older homes years of dust and shower grime add to the dark and dingy feel of a bathroom.

If you don’t have any luck with the first two steps, take a look at the actual lighting.  Try out halogen or tungsten lights instead of the regular incandescent ones.  These bulbs provide light that is closer to sunlight and will make the room feel brighter.  Before replacing the light fixtures, try replacing the glass on them.  These are called globes, and changing from a frosted to a clear on can make a huge difference.

Upgrading the light fixture should be the last thing that you do.  It costs more than the other steps, and is the most drastic.  Figuring out if a light fixture is going to be brighter than your current one shouldn’t be too tough, and a side by side comparison (or by memory) should do the trick.  Installing them is easy, just be sure to kill the power to the whole bathroom before playing with wires.  All you have to do is remove the old one and install the new one.

Getting rid of your dark bathroom lighting problem isn’t tough at all.  First, deal with what you already have and if that doesn’t work upgrade the lights!

Related posts:

1. Do You Really Need A New Bathroom Light Fixture?
2. Do You Need New Fixtures To Improve Bathroom Vanity Lighting?
3. Bathroom Wall Light Fixtures