Bedroom Wall Lights: How to Choose Them, Where to Put Them and the Mistakes Everyone Makes

Bedroom wall lights are the fitting people get wrong most often, and the reason is simple: the bedroom is the only room where you look at the light from lying down. Heights that work in a hallway put a bulb straight in your eyes. Brightness that suits a kitchen makes a bedroom feel like a waiting room. And the switch, which nobody thinks about until the first night, decides whether you ever use the thing at all.

Here is how to get it right first time.

Start with what the light is for

A bedroom wall light does one of two jobs, and it is worth deciding which before you buy.

Ambient light replaces the overhead light for most of the evening. It should be soft, low, and coming from more than one point so the room has no single harsh source. Two wall lights either side of the bed do this well, and a pair on the opposite wall does it better.

Reading light needs to reach the page. That means a fitting that throws some light downward, mounted close enough to the pillow that the light actually lands where the book is. An enclosed fitting that only glows will not do this, however pretty it is.

Most people want both, which is why the best bedroom wall lights are open at the bottom so light falls on the bedside, and made of something that diffuses the rest of it softly rather than throwing it across the room.

Mounting height

The figures we give most often, measured from the finished floor to the centre of the fitting:

Beside the bed: 1.4m to 1.5m. Another way to say it is around 60cm above the top of the mattress. Any higher and you get light in your eyes when you sit up. Any lower and it disappears behind the headboard.

On the opposite wall or beside a dressing table: 1.6m to 1.7m, the same as a hallway, because you are usually standing or seated upright.

Measure from the mattress top, not the bed frame. A deep mattress on a low platform bed can sit 15cm higher than a thin one on a divan, and that difference is exactly the difference between glare and comfort.

One light or two

Two, almost always, if two people sleep in the bed. A single central fitting above the headboard lights the wall and neither pillow. Two fittings, each centred roughly 30cm to 40cm out from the middle of the bed, put light where each person needs it and let one side read while the other sleeps.

The width between them should follow the bed. On a standard UK double (135cm) they sit around 90cm apart. On a king (150cm) or super king (180cm), spread them wider so each light is genuinely over its own side.

The switch

This is the one that causes regret. A wall light on the ordinary lighting circuit switches from the door, which means getting out of bed to turn it off. That gets old within a week.

The options, in order of preference:

Two way switching. A switch by the door and a second switch at each bedside, so the lights work from anywhere. Easy during a renovation, disruptive afterwards because it means chasing cable.

A fitting with its own switch. A rocker or pull cord on the fitting itself. Cheaper and simpler, and fine if the fitting is close enough to the pillow to reach without sitting up.

A smart bulb or smart switch. Works with replaceable-lamp fittings, adds dimming and scheduling, and needs no extra wiring. The trade-off is depending on an app.

Whichever you choose, decide it before the electrician turns up, not after.

Dimming

Worth having in a bedroom more than anywhere. The same fitting needs to be bright enough to read by and low enough to fall asleep to, and no single brightness does both.

Fittings that take a standard lamp dim with any dimmable bulb on a compatible dimmer. Integrated LED fittings only dim if they were built that way, and it cannot be added later. Check before you buy.

Why the material matters more here than anywhere

In a hallway you glance at a wall light in passing. In a bedroom you lie a metre from it for an hour every night. Glare that you would never notice elsewhere becomes the thing you notice most.

That is the argument for a diffusing material over an exposed bulb or a clear glass shade. Fabric shades soften light but block most of it, so you need a brighter bulb, which then leaks around the edges. Frosted glass diffuses well but has no depth and looks flat when off.

Natural alabaster does something neither of those does. The light passes through the stone itself, scatters inside it, and comes out warm and even across the whole face of the fitting. There is no hot spot over the bulb and no bright edge. You can look straight at it from the pillow and it reads as a glowing panel rather than a light source. It is why alabaster has become the default in hotel bedrooms, which are designed by people who think about this for a living.

Our Colonna at 35cm and the Lastra at 30cm are both open top and bottom, so you get reading light on the bedside and a soft wash up the wall, from £189.00 and £335.00 including VAT. The full range is in our alabaster wall lights collection.

Colour temperature

Warm. 2700K is right for a bedroom, 3000K at the outside. Anything cooler reads as clinical at night and works against sleep. If a fitting offers selectable colour temperature, set it once to the warm end and leave it.

The mistakes, briefly

Mounting too high. The single most common one. Measure from the mattress.

One light for two people. Nobody gets the light where they need it.

No bedside switch. The light goes unused.

Cool white bulbs. The room feels like an office.

Fully enclosed fittings for reading. They glow beautifully and light nothing.

Choosing from a photograph. Wall lights are photographed lit, at a distance, in a large room. Yours will be seen unlit, up close, in a smaller one. Pick something that looks good switched off.

Wiring

Bedroom wall lights are hardwired, with the cable coming out of the wall at the mounting height. During a renovation that is trivial. In a finished room the honest choices are chasing the wall and making good, surface trunking, or a visible cable. Use a qualified electrician either way.

Where to start

Our alabaster wall lights start at £140.00 including VAT. For the full sizing and bulb guidance, read the alabaster wall lights buyer's guide. If you are matching finishes across a whole room, the brass wall lights guide covers what goes with what.

Not sure which fitting suits your bed and wall? Call 0330 133 6617 with the bed size and ceiling height and we will talk it through.