The days of slow-to-warm-up, white LED bulbs are over - LED strip lights open up a new world of lighting. The wide range of LEDs available on the market today make for a whole host of creative ways to use LED strip lights to light up your home.
These innovative lighting strips now come in an array of colours, lumen levels, voltage and shapes. Flexible LED strips are perfect for adding a unique ambience to any space. Let’s explore them.
LED strip lights have become quite the popular choice. This is because they offer a cost-effective way to light up your home. They are extremely versatile, compact, flexible, and very easy to install. Below, we’ve outlined some creative ways to use LED strip lights in your home that you might not have considered.
What Are LED Strip Lights?
This is a fair question as they’re still newcomers to the lighting scene. They are essentially flexible circuit boards that feature a collection of small LED lights.
They have a few distinct features that make them perfect for custom home lighting. This is because they:
- Are flexible and can be lengthened and shortened. This means they can be bent vertically up to 90 degrees to fit almost any surface.
- Carry a variety of different IP ratings, so can be suitable for a variety of uses as indoor LED lights or outdoor lighting.
- Can be stuck practically anyway. You might be wondering how to use LED strip lights and how they are applied to so many different surfaces. Thanks to their adhesive backing you can easily add a pop of colour and light to pretty much any room in your home.
These compelling benefits are the reason why we’re taken it upon ourselves at Vision Lighting to think up some creative indoor LED uses for them.
We hope these stylish and creative ideas for how to use LED lights inspire you to try some out in your own home:
1. Install Recessed Lighting
Recessed wall lighting is an easy way to add a touch of sophistication to your home. It’s sleek and easy to conceal, making recessed lighting a perfect choice for areas with limited space for hanging fixtures. It’s also a popular choice for bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms, and—more recently—outdoor lighting. Strip lights are the ideal LED wall lights to use indoors because they can run along the full length of a wall.
In recessed wall lighting, LED strips are placed in a hollow or indented part of the wall, which is great for giving your space a slightly diffused lighting effect. Users can select different effects depending on the environment they wish to create. Warm strips may be used to create a relaxing and calm environment.
Alternatively, cool lighting could be utilised to create a sharp and vibrant effect. Top tip - don’t use recessed light fixtures over mirrors. This is because they are very directional in nature, meaning they will shine directly on top of your head creating unflattering shadows.
2. Use LED Strip Lights On Your Walls
An alternative to recessed lighting is to use your LED strip light on flat surfaces. Surface-mounted wall lighting, where LED light strips are pasted or mounted on the surface of the wall, is great for adding unfiltered bright light in your space. This can be a simple but effective use for LED wall lights indoors.
You can also use this technique to introduce some colour into your room. By using coloured lights, you can let your creativity take flight and create art pieces or decorative lighting on your walls.
3. Add LED Accent Lighting To Your Staircase
Add some ‘wow’ factor to your staircase with LED accent lighting. Whether it is made of glass, wood or metal, your staircase will look modern and sophisticated with the addition of LED light strips. Light strips are a great way to light up your stairs - they’re small in size, flexible, and easy to install yourself, meaning you won’t have to fork out to hire professional help to put in staircase lighting in your space.
LED strips can be added to your staircase either below the hand railing or underneath the tread. Not only do they look sleek and stylish, but they will also make it easier to navigate the stairs at night. Lighting your stairs is also an effective way to bring some depth and width to narrow staircases. You can choose to go with any colour you like, but we find classic colours like warm and cool white look the best.
4. Use LED Strips On Your Ceiling
Move over expensive pendant lighting, LED strips are the new, stylish, cost-effective way of lighting your home. Installing LED lighting strips in your ceiling coving in any space in your home is a convenient and inexpensive use of LED indoor lights to add interest to your ceiling and highlight architectural details. You could:
- Use high-density strips in a warm tone to create a cosy, welcoming atmosphere in your living room.
- Accent the top of your kitchen cupboards to add the illusion of height to the room.
- Add ambience to your bathroom with LED light strips with an IP65 rating or use them as a subtle night light as opposed to having to turn on a bright ceiling light.
5. Install LED Strip Lights To Enhance Your Kitchen
The kitchen is often the central hub of any home - it is the focal point of the house. As a room that you will most likely spend most of your time in, it’s important that it’s tastefully lit. LED strip lights offer many creative options for enhancing different aspects of your kitchen.
In being compact, bright and energy efficient, LED strip lights are perfect for the job. We’ve already established that they make ideal LED wall lights indoors due to their adjustable length and flexibility. In this case, you can use LED adhesive tape to stick your lighting strips inside, above or below your kitchen cabinets to make them pop and add a diffused light effect. You could also place them on your kitchen counter for additional lighting.
We have a wide range of different colours and designs, so you are guaranteed to find the perfect LED strip lights to create the perfect ambience and atmosphere in your kitchen.
6. Use LED Strip Lights To Create Flattering Mirror Lighting
If you want a touch of class in your bedroom or dressing room, this is definitely one of the best creative indoor LED uses to pay attention to. You will likely spend time in front of your mirror at least once a day and it should be lit in a way that’s both flattering and effective. Backlighting a mirror with LED strips is an updated take on traditional large vanity mirror bulbs.
Using a warm light will create a soft glow and provide a very even level of lighting, limiting shadows and making you look your best.
7. Backlight Your Screens And Add Some Drama
Similar to the way that adding a backlight to your mirror can add a flattering glow, adding LED lighting strips to the back of your TV or computer screen can add drama to your room. This has become one of the most popular uses for LED strips in the past few years.
It may sound odd at first, but the low-level brightness from the LED lights creates the perfect ambience for any entertainment centre, whilst the bold, central shape of the TV screen or the computer looks great with a little DIY backlighting — especially for a game room or cinema room. Not only does it enhance the viewing experience, as an added bonus, soft LED light strips behind your screen (also known as bias lighting) can help to mitigate eye strain by offsetting the brightness. Plus it creates a very cool-looking setup!
8. Light Up Your Outdoor Space With Creative Lighting
Strip lights don’t just make great indoor LED lights. They can also be used outdoors as well. However, it’s important to make sure they have the correct rating for the environmental conditions they will be exposed to. Here at Vision Lighting, we ensure that all of our LED lighting strips have an IP rating of at least 65, are water-resistant, and are protected from water ingress, dust, and pollution - meaning you can use them anywhere!
Think about those long summer days: spending time in your garden doesn’t always end when the sun goes down. Sure, it’s great to watch the stars, but it’s also great to be able to see your drink and the people you’re sitting with!
Use LED strip lighting on your decking or patio area to add style and practicality to your garden, as well as potentially increase safety and security. Having lights in your garden will prevent people from tripping over steps and plant pots as well as giving you peace of mind that your lit garden acts as an additional security measure to protect your home.
9. Enhance Your Shelving With LED Lighting
Back to our creative indoor LED uses - a shelf can be so much more than a practical storage solution. Adding a strip of LED lighting, either with a pop of colour, a warming tone or a cooler light for a modern look, can enhance your shelves, taking them to another level. By placing the strip lights either below or above the shelf, you can draw in the eye to showcase your books, ornaments or artwork.
LED strip lights are also a great option for lighting up smaller storage spaces, such as a pantry or a wardrobe. With them being compact in size and easy to apply, LED strip lights are a perfect alternative to a full ceiling light fixture that can often be too bright for a smaller space.
10. Install Lighting Strips Under Your Furniture
Finally, our last creative idea for using LED lighting strip lights in your home is to highlight key pieces of furniture, making them a focal point in any room. With the right lighting, you can completely change the look and feel of a room. Here are some of our favourite ideas:
- You could add a warm, relaxing, low-light ambience to your bathroom with the soft illumination of LED strips lighting up the bottom of your bathtub. It’s important that these lights have an IP rating of at least 67, just like our TradeLED waterproof LED Strip Lights, as they may come in contact with water.
- Use LED strip lighting behind your headboard to create a cosy ambience or opt for a coloured light for a pop of colour. You could also illuminate the floor below your bed, or a baby’s cot, enough to see at night without waking anyone up.
- Highlight your workspace for full visibility. LED indoor lights like strip lights are the perfect addition to illuminate your projects and activities. Placing a strip of LED lights around the top of your table is a great option. Look to add these lights to table edges too to get light from every angle.
- Add a modern twist to your dining table by adding LED strip lights. Create soft lighting for cosy dinners or a cool or colourful light that is perfect for parties.
- Finally, we suggest adding LED lighting strips under your sofa or chairs, because when you inevitably drop your mobile phone or your TV remote under the sofa, LED lights will make it much easier to find again!
Feeling Inspired?
Now that you have some inspiration for how to use LED lights creatively, if you now fancy the idea of accessing LED lighting to your home, browse our LED strip lights or get in touch with us today!
Here at Vision Lighting, over the last decade or so that we have been operating, we have spent time refining and honing our product development so that we only offer the best products. Our LED light strips will offer stunning illumination and last for years to come. If you are looking for a new LED light solution for your domestic or commercial property, then look no further than Vision Lighting.
If you're having trouble finding a particular product or would like to speak to us about our range of LED strip lights, speak to one of our experts today and we'll use our experience to come up with a fantastic, bespoke set of items that are right for you! You can call us on +44 (0) 1132 799745 or email us at info@vision-lighting.co.uk. Alternatively, you can use this online contact form.