Room by Room
Our bathroom had a single horizontal light bar above the mirror — four exposed bulbs in a row, all pointing forward, all at a wattage that would have been appropriate for surgical lighting. Every morning I stood in front of the mirror looking like a suspect. Every evening bath felt like an interrogation.
The fix was simpler than I'd expected: two bathroom sconces flanking the mirror, mounted at 63 inches from the floor (eye level when standing), and a dimmer switch. The original light bar came down. The sconces went up on the same wiring with a simple junction box.
The difference in how the light falls on your face is immediate and dramatic. Side-mounted vanity lights illuminate the face evenly from both sides, eliminating the downward shadows that overhead lighting creates under the eyes, nose, and chin. These are the shadows that make everyone look tired in their bathroom mirror. Side-mounted lighting removes them entirely.
I used 3000K bulbs for the vanity — slightly cooler than the 2700K I use elsewhere — because true color rendering matters when I'm choosing what to wear and getting ready. Under 2700K, everything has a warm cast that looks beautiful but isn't always accurate.
The dimmer makes the bathroom a genuinely versatile room. Full brightness for getting ready in the morning. Dimmed to 20 percent for a bath in the evening. That second mode — barely-lit, warm and quiet — is the one that earns the word "spa." The bathroom isn't large and we didn't renovate a single tile. The lighting did everything.
Karen at The Holloway Home covered the most common bathroom lighting mistake — a useful companion for understanding what not to do before thinking about the spa approach.