3 Tips for Adding Lights to Your Shelves
If you like looking at decor magazines or observing the decor when you’re in a restaurant, hotel or store, you’ve probably noticed how many interiors use lights in shelves to create brighter, beautiful settings.
And maybe you love the idea and want to try it in your home. So, in our post today, we want to give you some tips for adding lights to your shelves. They’ll look amazing!
Why should you add lights to your shelves?
Indirect lighting is perfect for any time of day and can suit any room. It’s also great for creating a warmer setting and decorating cheaply.
Adding lights to your shelving units or cabinets, or even to your stairs and open spaces, can give your home a new feel. Lights are a practical detail; and if you use LED bulbs (like most people do), you can highlight a certain area or corner on your shelf.
Lighting up certain areas is an obvious benefit that shelf lights have because that’s their main function. But they do more than just light. They create a feature in a bedroom, living room or hallway. Adding lights to your shelves is a great way to decorate and light your home up… And it won’t cost much!
Tips for adding lights to your shelves
If you want to add lights to your home or office shelves, we have some important tips for you to get perfect results:
1. Choose the right lights
You can find all kinds of lights in stores for shelves or cabinets. But each one has its own features and will work in certain settings better than others. While you’ll need to rely on your personal preferences to make your final choice, we recommend considering the best kind of light for each room. For example, use gentle lights for bedrooms and stronger lights in the dining room.
2. Take advantage of your general electrical installation
While installing shelf lights can be easy as sticking LED light strips directly onto your shelves, you can also use electricity for stronger or more professional lighting options.
By using what you already have, all your wires will stay behind the walls and you can turn on your lights with a switch. From an aesthetic point of view, the results will look much better, and neater and you can avoid problems like peeling light lines. In addition, when the bulb burns out, you only need to replace it.
3. Buy a complete kit
If adjusting your original electrical installation isn’t an option, don’t worry. You can also purchase complete light kits that are easy to set up. You don’t have to be exceptionally handy to add these lights to your shelves!
Kits offer results that are surprisingly professional because you can hide the wires and plug them into the nearest outlet. You can also try the ever-popular stick-on LED light strips. They’re perfect for casual settings or teenage rooms and come in a variety of colors and designs.
Practical idea: adding lights to a wooden shelving unit
Let’s say that you have a dresser in your room, or that you have a wooden shelving unit in your living room where you place decorative accessories or souvenirs from past trips. But, it’s in a dark areas of the room. Add a LED light strip to each shelf!
Measure your unit and purchase the strips in the length that you need. Try to connect all of the strips to the same cord and plug it into the nearest outlet. Make sure that each light works before installing them.
Light strips are great because you can hide the cords behind your shelves. Just check to see how long a cord you’ll need in order to reach an outlet with no difficulties! You can also add a switch to turn on and off without having to disconnect them entirely.
Light strips already come with adhesive, but you should consider using strong tape or clips at the ends to ensure they stay in place. That way, they won’t peel off over time.
Adding lights to your shelves is easy thanks to LED light strips. But you can always go with traditional light-bulbs as well. Either way, your shelves will look great!