It's easy to overlook a stairway in a home without realising how often it gets appraised and used on a daily basis. For this reason alone, it is imperative to look after a stairway and make sure it is well lit. In this blog, we explore how to light a stairway in an unobtrusive, and stylish way.

Lighting a stairway can bring many benefits to a home, both from a practical and aesthetic point of view. It adds visual interest to the space and creates an ambient level of lighting without the need for additional lighting in the hallway.

But, there's no denying that stairway lighting is also a great safety feature for the night or those dark mornings.

How To Light A Stairway

There are many different ways you can light a stairway. The way you choose to light your stairway will ultimately come down to your interior style, and your requirements.

Recessed LED Lighting

The most popular and functional way to light a stairway is with recessed LED lighting. This follows you up the stairs, perfectly lighting each step as you go.

Adding step lighting will enhance your stairs and light those nooks and crannies as they elevate. They can also can be installed in a number of ways to suit your requirements. The most common way is to install them horizontally on the tread of the stairs as shown below. Or they can be installed vertically as the steps rise.

Illuminating each step on a stairway helps to create a level of safety that other light sources just can't provide. This form of stairway lighting is a functional way to light a stairway, guiding you up the stairs at night. Functionality aside, this sleek lighting will blend into most interior styles, and provide gorgeous ambient levels of light during the early evening.

You can also create difference levels of ambience by thinking about the colour temperature of the LED stair lights. Choose warm white bulbs for a cosy, inviting ambience, or cool white bulbs for a brighter look and feel.

Wall Lighting

Most stairways are adjacent to at least one wall which makes wall lighting a popular, and feasible choice to light a stairway. This can be an effective way to light a stairway, especially when layering with a pendant light or downlights, whilst choosing a decorative finish to suit the interior of the property.

However, wall lights are not an option for everyone and can become obtrusive on a narrow stairway.

Stairwell Lighting

Recessed LED lighting provides the sleekest and most accessible way to light a stairway. However, stairwell lighting should still be used in tandem to illuminate the space.

For stairwells that benefit from high ceilings, invest in stairwell pendant lights with a long drop to help illuminate the space, this will avoid dark blind spots throughout.

Glass pendant lights are also a great choice as they will reflect and disperse light evenly, whereas other enamel shades will just direct light downwards.

Lighting a stairway will bring that extra visual impact to a space, whilst guiding you safely throughout the night. Explore our full range of LED stair lights which are available in a wide range of finishes to match the interior hardware of your property.