Inspired Master Bedroom Lighting

Our Master Bedroom has a centered light fixture fan as most do. For evening lighting, we were using smaller lamps on each nightstand which neither HandyHubs or I were fans of. First, lamps equal lampshades and lots of dust. Second, no matter what type of bulb you put in a lamp it always feels like harsh light to me. I was intrigued by the idea of installing some wall sconces above our new headboard. I started looking at different lighting ideas online.

My concern with lighting is the ease of turning on and off and how to wire them. Luckily HandyHubs has some serious wiring skills (please note: We are not advising that you do your own electrical work).  We discussed the best option for us and I went shopping online for the perfect pair of Wall Lamps. Just to be clear, I do not receive any reimbursement from companies for my posts or reviews…

I love shopping on Wayfair.com and Amazon.com. I started on Amazon, and while I found several possibilities, I found the perfect set on Wayfair.  Crandallwood Outdoor Barn Light by Beachcrest Home in oil rubbed bronze. I tried to find them again on Wayfair, but wasn’t able to locate them. I’m sure you can find a similar look though. These lights were about $32 each, which was perfect for my budget!

Next was installation – this part was pretty funny. HH and I both wanted reading lights that were over the headboard but installed in the wall. We put a bulb in one light, plugged it in and took turns holding it against the wall at varying heights while the other laid in bed and pretended to read something LOL. Silly, but effective!! We found the perfect height and marked on one side then mimicked those measurements on the other.

Now for the wiring. Each of the lights was created to be wired into a switch. Well…. that wasn’t going to work for us. The cost of running more wiring into the walls to a second switch was outside of our budget. Instead, HH modified the wiring, connecting them to a plugin. He ran the wiring down through the wall near the outlet and plugged them in there. He then installed a toggle switch in the base of each light to easily turn them on and off.

We were so happy with the way they turned out. The only thing was that we really wanted them to be dimmable – and they were listed as dimmable lights. After a visit to Best Buy for other items, we found the Philips Hue light bulbs!! Have you heard of these? Oh My Gosh! They are fantastic!!! We purchased a kit and brought it home right away. We installed the color changing, dimmable bulbs and loaded the Hue app onto our phones, and connected them to our Alexa. The bulbs also came with a controller that is magnetic. We attached the controller to the side of the headboard for ease of use. We used the app to set up our settings. In the morning the lights come on dimly and gradually increase in daylight type of lighting Monday – Friday when we need to get up. It’s so nice to wake up slowly by what feels like natural lights. At night, we do the same thing, they turn on automatically around 8 and dim down until they turn off naturally at 10:30.  We highly recommend the Philips Hue bulbs for any room of your home.

All in all, we found an inexpensive solution that adds a great finishing touch to our master suite that is both charming and functional.