A pair of matching wall lights either side of the bed are a popular choice for bedroom lighting. They bring a lot to the room, both visually and practically, but the challenge can sometimes be choosing the right bedside wall lights for your space.
Benefits of Bedside Wall Lights
Bedside wall lights serve two main purposes. They give you access to a light you can turn on and off from within the bed, which makes going to bed at night or getting up in the dark much easier. There’s no need for an awkward, half-blind fumble between the bed and the switch!
If you like to read in bed or do other activities like crafts, lights beside the bed also tend to be much more useful than relying on a big pendant in the middle of the room. Since beds are almost always placed against a wall, this places you on the edge of the room, which will get the least light from a main pendant. Worse, the pages of your book are probably facing directly away from the light, meaning they will be poorly lit up. Bedside wall lights provide a secondary source of illumination to shine much more directly on the task at hand.
Aesthetically speaking, a matching pair of wall lights will frame the bed pleasingly, and illuminate the natural focal point of the room. A well-chosen pair of decorative wall lights will also look good in their own right and become a valuable part of your overall décor.
Do You Have Power?
If you have already had bedside wall lights and are just looking for replacements, installing new ones should be a quick and easy job for your electrician – and therefore a fairly inexpensive one. However, if there is no existing source of power the job will be a bigger one.
Of course, this is essentially a one-and-done job – once you have power there, you will be ready for your new bedside wall lights and any future replacements. If you are already renovating, it may also be that carrying out this task at the same time will not be a big deal. However, if you want to save the time, expense, and potential need for making good damage to your décor, you might want to consider our range of rechargeable wall lights. These can be easily installed with minimal fuss, no existing power supply, and only basic DIY skills.
Style and Finish
A big consideration when choosing your new bedside lights will be the way they look, and how that will mesh with the way the room as a whole is decorated. For example, if you have other metal features in the room, you may very well want to choose a matching finish – though with careful thought, you can achieve good results from mixing different but complementary metal finishes.
Shade material is also a consideration. Fabric shade wall lights are a classic choice. Glass wall lights are also a longstanding favourite, and a very versatile one. Glass goes with a whole range of both classic and contemporary styles, and offers a choice of effects from clear to smoked, ribbed or prismatic shades.
In particular, you will probably want the wall lights to coordinate with other lighting in the room, especially the main pendant light. If you are replacing both, or even carrying out a full renovation, you can shop our range of bedroom pendant lights. Our Cranbrook Collection includes matching and complementary styles of both wall and pendant lights, and this is also the case for many of our curated range of lights from other manufacturers.
The Practical Points
Lastly, you need to consider the practical things – the features you need for your lights as well as the exact placement.
You will very likely want to look at switched wall lights for placing beside your bed. One of the big draws for most people is the ability to turn the lighting on and off from the bed, rather than connecting it to the main switch. This both allows you to get in and out of bed without stumbling in the dark, and to have the extra lights on only when they are needed.
For positioning your lights, our complete guide to wall light height includes tips on placing bedside wall lights. If you want to use them as reading or task lights rather than simply a light source you can turn on and off from the bed, you want to be sure you position them in a way that properly lights up what you are doing. If this is difficult for some reason or you think you may want to alter exactly how the light shines, consider adjustable wall lights so you can point them exactly where you need them at any given moment.
Final Thoughts
Bedside wall lights can seem a big decision, but they can also become an integral part of your bedroom. We have a full range of wall lights for all purposes and styles, including our very own, highly customisable, UK-made Cranbrook Collection wall lights.
If you have any questions or just aren’t sure about styling, feel free to give us a call and we will be happy to advise.
