Top LED Strip Lighting Ideas for Your Home
Until recently, all readily available lighting was in the form of a globe or tube. This meant that all light fittings had to be designed to accommodate these physical shapes, leading to the use of certain lighting styles in interior design.
The advent of LED panels and LED strips and their availability to homeowners and interior designers have added an exciting new dimension to how spaces can be lit, particularly how lighting can be used to accent, feature or highlight physical structures within the home. Here we’d like to offer some creative ideas using LED strip lighting in different rooms in your home.
LED strip lighting ideas for the kitchen
Currently, the most common place to find LED strip lights in the home is in the kitchen where they’ve become the go-to solution for brightening the space below cabinets that overhang countertops.
LED strips don’t really work as ambient lighting as they’re too small with a power of just a few watts. But as localised task lighting, brightening a countertop with overhanging cabinets, for example, making it easier to chop vegetables, works great.
What else can you do with them?
More open kitchens with shelving replacing cabinets have been a recent design trend and highlighting those shelves with strip LEDs under them, makes them even more of a feature.
Placing strip lights under floor-mounted kitchen cabinets, just above the kicker-board, helps otherwise heavy cabinet units appear to “float”, again lightening the feel of the room. LED strips are so slim they can be placed inside drawers on a click-switch that turns them on and off as the draw is opened or closed.
LED strip lighting ideas for the living room
The principles behind using LED strips and panels in the living room are the same as in the kitchen – not ideal for ambient lighting but good for localised task lighting and excellent for making a feature of furniture.
Your sofa will really make a splash with a strip light behind it… or under it. At nighttime, a window becomes a design feature when outlined with coloured strip lights.
Putting strip lights behind a TV makes it a fun focus for the room and offsets glare, making viewing less stressful on your eyes.
Any dark corner can be brightened with a strip of LEDs recessed into it and nowhere more so than by placing them around the recessed edge of a dropped ceiling.
This is particularly useful for rooms which have now made these spaces permanent to take advantage of a hybrid working environment. By placing a shelf above these new desks and an LED strip under it as task lighting, you create a more discrete but well-lit workstation. a high ceiling that is difficult to light from floor level.
So far we’ve looked at making the most of your furniture by highlighting it in a relaxing, low-light environment. Come party time you could really go all out with a ceiling that
comprises coloured LED panels; an instant disco vibe at the touch of a button!
At the onset of the Covid lockdowns, many of us set up temporary workspaces in our living rooms and many of us.
LED strip light ideas for the bedroom
Just as in the living room, LED strips in the bedroom are used to lighten dark corners and ceilings, raise up heavy furniture and make a feature of beds, wardrobes and vanities.
LED strip light ideas for bathrooms
Place LED strips behind a mirror… Brighten the ceiling and make a feature a recessed edge… provided they have a suitable IP-rated enclosure, LED strips work great in a shower. See our other blog on IP ratings to understand how water protection works.
LED strip lighting ideas for hallways, stairs and spaces
Home interior designers have long taken inspiration from architectural lighting in public spaces and nowhere more so than for the public spaces in the home: hallways, stairwells and other transit areas. So don’t be afraid to look at the architecture that amazes you and think about how it could be scaled down to suit your own space.
You can use LED strips to make a feature of stairs by fitting them under the stair edge, treads or bannisters. Here they’ve done all three in a public building. On smaller stairs in the home, we recommend using just one.
Use them to break up a hallway into sections, or really push the boat out and use LED panels to create a colour palette, And again, creating a floating ceiling works well in any space.
LED strip light ideas for gardens
You can use LEDs to accent an architectural feature on the exterior of your home or use them in the garden to mark pathways, lighten large planters, edge the deck or pergolas and under seating. Be sure to check our blog on IP ratings for LED use outdoors and stay safe.
FAQs
How do you make LED strips look nicer?
Recess them or fit them under opaque perspex strips.
Can LED strip lights illuminate a room?
They are best used to highlight a feature or as localised task lighting.
Do LED strips go on the ceiling or wall?
They can be cut to almost any length and attached to either using the peel-away glue strip on the back.
Do LED strip lights increase your electricity bill?
LED lights use up to 80% less power than halogen bulbs, so, while adding any new lighting to your home will add to your bills, using LEDs will keep it as low as possible.
Can you leave strip LED lights on all night?
While LEDs do not use heat to create light and therefore do not get as hot as other lighting types, we recommend lights are switched off to save energy when not in use.
How do you hide LED strip wires from the ceiling?
Ideally LED strips can be planned in the design phase of a room and the wires can be chased in. Where this is not possible, plastic wiring covers are available in different colours or they can be painted to match the room decor.
How do you attach LED strips to the wall?
Many LED strip types come with peel-away glue on the back of them, allowing them to be easily glued in place.
Will LED strip lights damage walls?
The glue used on LEDs shouldn’t damage walls or ceilings but some paint may come away if they are removed.
How many LED lights do I need for my room?
LED strips are not designed to illuminate a room as such but as decorative additions. The exception is local task lighting such as under a shelf above a desk or under a kitchen cabinet to light a worktop. In these cases, a single or double strip should be sufficient.