How To Light Up Small Spaces.

When it comes to choosing lighting fixtures to brighten up the smaller spaces in your home — think spare bedrooms, studies and hallways — it’s about so much more than proportions. Yes, you want your fixtures to fit, but you also want them to provide sufficient lighting where you need it most, and to look good while they’re doing it. 

There are many tips and tricks to lighting a small space effectively, and we’re here to break them down, one by one.

1. Create A Layered Lighting Scheme

We’d recommend you employ multiple light sources for all rooms, regardless of their size, but we think it’s particularly important when it comes to small spaces. To be solely reliant on a single, central source of light is risky business in this case — there’s no guarantee that its reach will stretch far enough to cover all bases and, even if it does, the light is likely to become drawn out and weakened as it extends to the four corners, therefore failing to provide an even distribution of optimum lighting. (Chandeliers are an exception, but we’ll get to that later!). 

The trick is to build a team of ceiling lights, wall lights, desk lamps and floor lamps to illuminate your small spaces properly. The result will be a layered lighting scheme, a concept we’ve discussed in greater depth here. Layered lighting is the way to go if you want to accommodate all the demands of your small space. Whether it’s a room for relaxing, studying, working out, or all of these things depending on the day of the week, stocking the space up with a diversity of light fixtures (as many as it can possibly accommodate!), allows you to adjust the atmosphere accordingly.

As seen on: Interior Design Masters

2. Use Wall Lights In Narrow Spaces

One of the main must-haves in your layered lighting scheme is wall lighting. These are exceptional space-savers, simply adding a bit of texture to your four walls, and you can find some super fancy designs. Our flush-fit wall fixtures are especially economical with space. 

Use your wall lights to highlight and emphasise your key areas, such as statement furniture pieces, artworks and architectural details.

3. Brighten Dark Corners

As we outlined above, you need a mixed bag of lighting sources dotted around your small space to ensure that even the shadow-iest of corners get a good helping of light. Shadows can really darken a room, and make it feel even smaller as a result, the effect getting evermore pressing as these shadows accumulate. A top tip is to stop these shadows from settling at all, by fixing a light in the pesky corners themselves, or at least nearabouts. Table lamps, floor lamps and wall lights are all great for this, depending on the area in question.

4. Swap Art Features For Light Fixtures

It’s sad, but small rooms will struggle to squash in all your favourite interior design features. Paintings, photographs and quirky bits of pottery will probably fall by the wayside while you’re trying to fit in your essentials, which may leave you feeling like the room is bursting with substance, but fails to deliver on style. And so this is when you combine the two — style and substance — with some cool, contemporary lighting fixtures that can pretty much double up as works of art.

5. Choose A Multi-Directional Chandelier

Contemporary chandeliers are on-trend for a reason right now. Not only do they look great, they’re highly functional too. You may think they’re a bit extravagant for a small room, one which you may not spend too much time in overall, but it’s important to focus on their practical importance here, and see their glamour as a bonus. 

Chandeliers are defined by a collection of multiple arms that extend in myriad directions, each cradling a bright, shiny light bulb at their end, which emits a powerful glow of light across all parts of your room. Unlike pendants and flush-fit ceiling fixtures, chandeliers can operate pretty well as solo luminaries in your small space (though we’d still advise using different sources as supporting lights, too). Centralising a strong lighting fixture like this gives an overall appearance of brightness, even in the daylight, especially if you choose a glass chandelier, or our classy opal ball chandelier, which is decorated with a pale colour palette for extra luminosity.

6. Go For Minimal But Impactful Fittings

Whether or not you can pursue the tip above depends how small your small space really is. We appreciate that those who are dealing with the smallest rooms of all may not be able to dabble in chandeliers, and so this is where minimalism would be a more suitable approach. 

If you wish to make a statement without overcrowding, choose a low-key ceiling fixture, like our diffuser flush ceiling lights. The wow-factor is certainly still there, but it resides in the fixture’s unique design, rather than its physical size. 

You can choose to prioritise design over size with your other fixtures, too. Our ribbed table lamp and arch table lamp are cute but compact, while our curve floor lamp and corner floor lamp are nice and slender, slotting into narrow spaces with ease. Sometimes less is more, so see what you can do with smaller fixtures.

7. Use Mirrors To Double Lighting Effects

To maximise the effect of the lighting you do have, we suggest fixing a few mirrors around the room, and angling them towards your light sources so that they catch surrounding light and reflect it back out into the room. It’s a simple trick to make your small space feel lighter and brighter, without needing to go overboard on your lighting fixtures.

8. Create Vertical Lighting Paths To Emphasise Height

For narrow spaces, you can get creative with our favourite optical illusion — vertical lighting paths. This will sideline the attention from the narrow width of the small space towards its height, or what will be perceived as height. 

You can create these vertical paths with long floor lamps, like our tripod floor lamps, or table lamps and wall lights that direct light upwards. We’d advise you to avoid downward lighting here, as that will produce the opposite effect. 

Small spaces deserve the same love and respect as any other space. No matter what others have told you, one measly ceiling light just won’t cut it — especially if you want to use that space for various activities (and who doesn’t want a multi-purpose space!?). Once you know exactly what your small room needs to be adequately lit, all you’ve left to do is choose some fixtures to suit your personal style. Take a look at houseof.com for some inspiration. We’ve a whole range of ceiling lights, table lamps, floor lamps and wall lights available on our site, in an equally extensive selection of designs and colours.