Lighting for the Laundry Room

Recently, we’ve spoken a lot in our blogs about creating the proper lighting setup for a variety of different rooms and spaces, both in the home and business. However, there’s still one room in the house that hasn’t quite gotten the attention we think it deserves – the laundry room. 

The humble laundry room has been serving homes for years as that semi-forbidden place that makes some people happy, and others dread its existence. This is largely down to the fact that laundry seems like some strange recipe for success that only a few ever get to master while others are left to debate what the dials on the machines actually mean endlessly. 

Then comes the relative tedium of folding and sorting out clothes while also conducting the bi-weekly hunt for missing socks. 

For obvious reasons, not everyone has a whole room dedicated entirely to their laundry and often has to do with space inside a  bathroom or garage. We’d argue that a lot of these lighting tips we’re going to cover will similarly cover the essentials for just about any space that hosts your laundry essentials, so it’s worth it to read on even if you don’t have a laundry room yourself. 

Whether you love laundry or not, all of this needs to have the right kind of lighting setup if you want to get the job done right.

Natural Lighting

Now, this might seem a bit counterintuitive given that we’re a steel lighting company, but to be perfectly honest, there’s not much better lighting in the world than natural lighting. Yes, that giant lamp in the sky we call the sun actually provides some of the best lighting available, and it does this while not affecting your power bills or angering the neighbors in the process. 

As a result, the best lighting layout for a good laundry room worth its salt is a layout that can account for as much natural lighting as possible. If you have the benefit of being able to modify your home or are in the process of building from scratch, accounting for some large windows or even a skylight can be a massive boon to any lighting setup in the laundry room. 

Laundry rooms usually get tucked away to the side of kitchens or garages for some reason.  This leaves them feeling like damp little caves when there isn’t that much light coming in. Moving to avoid this from the outset can make your laundry experience much more enjoyable.

Light and Colour

Now, while the reasons for choosing natural lighting first and foremost may seem obvious – the sun is super bright and therefore better. The other, less apparent reason comes down to something else – color. 

Natural lighting has the benefit of having the best color of light for doing any task-heavy activity around. Of course, when we say “color,” we mean the temperature of the light itself. 

To put it simply, the color of light is dictated by how hot the light is. This may get a bit confusing so bear with us, but the hotter a light gets, the bluer or “cold” becomes to the human eye. Conversely, the colder a light becomes, the “warmer” the source seems. 

This heat is measured in kelvins (K). The kelvin range in current lighting technologies is between 1500K to 6500K.

This “blue” light is handy because it makes the colors and tones of objects appear as brightly and as naturally as possible, making it easier to decipher if a piece of clothing has an imperfection or not. 

It’s All About the Layers

Good lighting is all about nailing those layers of light to create a complete experience, regardless of the room. With laundry rooms, your lighting setup isn’t going to vary too much from the sort of lighting required in the kitchen or a hobby-focused garage. 

Filling the space with a combination of ambient and task-focused lighting will help massively with how enjoyable your laundry is going to be. 

Ambient Lighting

Ambient lighting, for the uninitiated, is the type of lighting you see when you think about ceiling lights in a room. Ambient lighting is designed to essentially “canvas” a space with light and provide even coverage across the entire room. The key here for ambient light is to remain consistent and wide-casting while staying unobtrusive at the same time. 

Recessed lighting is a popular option with many ambient lighting setups as it nails the unobtrusiveness that’s desired in ambient lighting setups. However, a solid alternative would be a hanging ceiling light such as our ceiling light fixtures range. 

Each of our steel lights can accomplish the task of lighting a laundry room with ease, with our top-rated options, such as the Carson and Malibu, being ideally suited to illuminating the tighter spaces of a laundry room without feeling obtrusive in the process. 

Task Lighting

Task lighting is when things get a bit more fiddly. Primarily, a laundry room is going to be something of a “work-horse” room in the house. There needs to be spaces for folding clothes, storing laundry baskets, and hanging damp clothing while also having a place to put cleaning products. 

As a result, having a lighting setup that can accommodate the laundry room experience’s nitty-gritty and the task-heavy nature of the activities conducted inside is especially important. In most cases, under-cabinet lighting is a popular choice with homes that can accommodate those sorts of changes to their laundry room. However, a more straightforward approach would be to use wall-mounted lights such as the kind from our range of steel lights. 

In particular, our smaller units, such as the Hawthorne or Westchester units, can perfectly accommodate any task-heavy space, especially when paired with a bright LED bulb. 

If you’d like to know more about how steel lighting can improve your laundry experience, then contact our team at Steel Lighting Co.,  our friendly group of experts would be more than happy to give some advice and recommendations on what kind of steel barn light can best suit your needs.