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The hallway and hallway are areas that should make an impression, as they are the first thing people see when they enter your home. They should also be comfortable – because they are dressed, fluttering. Both beauty and convenience are possible only in one case, if the hallway lighting is chosen correctly and provides a sufficient level of illumination.
Technical Highlights
Illumination in each room of the house is standardized by SNiP. According to his recommendations, in the hallway and corridor for every meter of area there should be 50 lm of light flux. In this case, everything is calculated simply: calculate the area of u50buXNUMXbyour room (if there is a wardrobe, do not count it). Multiply the figure found by XNUMX Lm, you get the luminous flux that all lamps should give.
For example, the entrance hall has dimensions of 2,5 * 1,8 m. We find its area by multiplying the numbers together: 2,5 * 1,8 u4,5d 2 m4,5. Next, we find the luminous flux according to the norm: 50 * 225 u225d XNUMX Lx. That is, all the light bulbs that we install in this corridor should provide illumination of at least XNUMX Lx. It is this (or more) luminous flux that the hallway lighting should have.
There is another technical subtlety that will make life more convenient and enjoyable. Usually the light switch in the hallway is located near the door. If it is small, this state of affairs is quite tolerable – you can take a couple of steps in a poorly lit space. In a long hallway or corridor, this is very inconvenient. Turn off the lights and walk in the dark. In the daytime, even more or less, and in the evening or at night, wandering around in the dark is not very pleasant. You can correct this situation by installing walk-through switches that allow you to turn on and turn on the light from several points. For example, put one near the front door, the other near the door to the room and / or kitchen.
It is especially convenient to use walk-through switches in a long corridor. They turned on the light near the entrance, walked along the illuminated corridor, turned it off near the room. And vice versa: turned on at the room, dressed, leaving, turned off. Convenient, and besides, hallway lighting will also be economical, since there is no need to leave the lamps on.
If there is a wardrobe or dressing room in the hallway, their lighting is done separately. There is even a standard for dressing rooms – 75 lm per square area. It is better to use LED lamps as light sources – they emit the least heat, and they shine brightly.
There is another way to save on lighting bills and not infringe on ease of use – to install motion sensors. They will turn on the hallway lighting only if someone is in the room. The only difficulty may arise if the corridor has a curved shape: you will have to put two sensors and direct them in different directions.
Types of chandeliers for the hallway
The specifics of the hallway very rarely allows the use of large chandeliers – these are too small rooms. They have to dress / undress, which requires a certain freedom of action. Therefore, hallway lamps are chosen compact, not too far from the walls or ceiling. And this is the main criterion. The second is the number of lamps. Most often they choose with one, maybe even with two. More in a small space is overkill. Is it possible to install only one lamp for the entire hallway. But more often, hallway lighting is made multicomponent. At a minimum, use a few more wall lights near the mirror.
Here are some lamps for you can consider for the hallway:
- Ceiling flat or with a very small height. In shape – any – round, square, long.
- Wall lamps – sconces of various configurations.
- Spotlights built into the ceiling.
- LED lighting of the ceiling or any objects.
The latest trend in lighting is the combination of lighting (LED strip or recessed lights) with ceiling lights and sconces. Lamps are evenly placed over the ceiling area, sconces are usually near the mirror or above the chest of drawers.
How to arrange lamps
It is not enough to know how much light the lamps should emit. You also need to choose the right location. That’s right – it’s so that it was beautiful, the light fell evenly and the lamps did not interfere with movement.
Wall lighting only: worth it or not
When developing hallway lighting schemes, different ideas come up. One of them is to abandon the ceiling lighting, installing only wall lights. In principle, this is possible, but the result is unlikely to please you: with the help of a sconce, uniform lighting cannot be achieved. Dark and light areas will be clearly visible. It looks great in the picture, creates a nice visual effect, but it is impractical and inconvenient. When you need to get dressed, there is not enough light, which is annoying. But this is a subjective feeling. Perhaps uneven light suits you or you have a lot of mirrors in the hallway that reflect and scatter light.
You can check how much you like the wall lighting in the hallway in practice – conduct an experiment. Find a few flashlights of any type, attach them with masking tape in the places where the lamps are supposed to be installed. If there are any old sconces, you can use them. They will give a more believable picture (lanterns usually give a too narrow beam of light, but you can remove the reflector, leaving only the bulb).
Having installed temporary wall “lamps”, use only this “lighting” for a couple of days. So it will be possible to understand whether you only have enough light from the sconce, or do you still need ceiling lighting. By the way, this technique can also be used if you are looking for where to fix the lamps in the corridor, hallway, and in any other room.
If you don’t want to have ceiling lighting in the hallway at all, there is a way out. You can find directional wall lamps that direct the entire light flux upwards. Reflected light from the ceiling will be scattered more evenly. But for the implementation of this plan, several conditions must be met. First, the ceiling must be perfectly white. It is better if it is glossy or semi-gloss, and this is a stretch ceiling. Secondly, the luminous flux from the lamps should be 1,5-2 times higher than the norm. Then you can hope that the reflected light will be enough.
Ceiling lamps
Ceiling lamps for hallways and corridors can be of several types:
- Chandeliers. They are usually looking for small in size and height. The number of horns is one or two, rarely three. You can hang one chandelier in the center of the room. If the room is long and narrow, look not for a round or square one, but for an elongated one – rectangular or oval.
Ceiling lights can be of different heights - Single flat luminaires. There are overhead and built-in. Overhead are suitable for conventional or plasterboard ceilings, built-in ones are used for suspended systems such as Armstrong ceilings.
- Point. Spot ceiling lights are light sources of small size and power that are compatible with stretch and suspended ceilings. Their number is considered depending on the power of the installed lamps (there are restrictions).
As you can see, there are many opportunities to make ceiling lighting and it is not at all necessary to use chandeliers. When choosing a place for installing fixtures on the ceiling in the hallway, they are guided by the size and geometry of the premises. If the room is square or close to this shape, it makes sense to place the chandelier in the center. In a room more like a rectangle, you can put two or three ceiling lights, dividing the length into equal sections.
If the shape is irregular (usually in the form of the letter G or T), one of the light sources is placed at the fork of the corridor. If the “appendicitis” is small, this is enough. If the distance is more than 2-3 meters, you can put another additional lamp.
LED lighting in the hallway and corridor
LED strips are good because they can be mounted both on the walls and on the ceiling. On the ceiling, lighting is usually done along the perimeter – at the junction of the wall and ceiling or along a specially made box. On the walls, LED lighting looks good in niches, near a mirror, decor items or paintings.
It is used mainly as additional lighting to create a decorative effect. There are LED strips that can change color, and they can change the brightness of everything. So they can work instead of nightlights, creating comfortable conditions in the dark.
Connecting LED strips has its own specifics – basically, they operate on a constant voltage of 12 or 24 V. Adapters are required to turn on 220 V.
Light as a means of correcting proportions
The hallway and corridor often have an unfortunate shape. The room can be long, narrow, cramped. These shortcomings can be corrected with the help of lighting. Here are some common situations and how to deal with them:
- Long elongated hallway. Particular emphasis is placed on the lighting of the walls. Fixtures can be placed on the walls or ceiling, but the light from them should be directed to the top of the walls. This effect will help visually make the room wider. The effect will be even greater if one of the long walls is framed with a mirror, preferably the entire wall.
A non-standard approach to lighting a hallway in a loft style - In hallways with bends, you can use lamps of different types, but of the same style. With this technique, we achieve zoning and an unsuccessful layout turns into a highlight.
- If the hallway is small, and the streams are high, it is necessary to visually “lower” the ceilings. To do this, the lamps use directional light with a small scattering angle. The light should be directed to the walls and floor, and the ceiling should remain in the shade.
- You can visually increase the height of the room with the help of a brightly lit white ceiling. In this case, the lamps also need directional light, but they should direct the buds of rays to the ceiling.
These tricks really work and solve two problems at once: they illuminate and correct the shape of the room. You just need to choose the right light sources.
The best hallway lighting
The entrance hall and the corridor are both walk-through and functional rooms. The best option is when the lighting here is multi-component and multi-level. Most often they make it composite: general – ceiling and point – zoned. This approach provides a high level of comfort. If you need to get dressed and evaluate your appearance, turn on all the lights. In bright light, not a single detail will escape. If you only need a “standby” light, turn on one or two bulbs. Enough to dispel the darkness and economically, as there is no energy overrun.
Spot lighting is located near the mirror, closet (or in the closet itself), sometimes – near the front door. Here they install sconces or spots – overhead lamps with a rotating shade. They must be switched on separately from the ceiling lighting. Spots on the ceiling are also convenient – you can always change the direction of the light flux. At the same time, there is no need to rearrange the lamps – you just need to deploy the shades.
Light switches in the corridor or hallway are located near the front door, on “additional light sources” – near mirrors, cabinets – most often, not far from them.