Wash Lighting is a unique lighting effect that’s perfect for creating a lovely ambience in your home. We’re taking a look at this incredible method of taking your home’s lighting style up a notch.

A “wash” is a general fill of light and colour spread evenly across your wall. It’s typically created by mounting lights in such a way that a beam of light falls on the wall at a wide angle, but certain light fittings are also designed to be installed on walls and cast light above or below them, instead of in front of them.

Wash lighting creates visual uniformity, ‘washing out’ textures and drawing attention to your wall as a large flat surface. It will make your home look much larger and grander. If your goal is to highlight details and texture then you should avoid wash lighting, as it will flatten these finer details.

You can, of course, use wash lighting everywhere (it was initially popularised in stage lighting!) but the most popular domestic location to use it is in gardens. Instead of creating more practical illumination, wash effects are best used for visual appeal, such as making your garden look bigger and accentuating sight lines.

To get started, take a look at our outdoor lighting range. The simplest way to get a wash effect is with our up/down wall light or our downlight range. Alternatively, our range of ground lights have a number of spotlight style lights that, when installed further away from your wall (typically a minimum of about 12 inches), will cause a wash effect.

Tips For Creating Wash Lighting

  1. Washes look best when there are multiple fixtures, spread evenly to ensure maximum coverage.
  2. When spreading multiple lights, ensure that the light they cast overlaps slightly- you want to avoid shadows and dark spots to create a truly striking wash effect.
  3. Make sure your lights are evenly focused.
  4. Choose the lights you’re going to use carefully. If they’re too powerful, you could risk overpowering the look, but if they’re too dim they won’t be particularly noticeable.
  5. We’d highly recommend using LED lights for maximum efficiency- this will ensure your more decorative light set up won’t consume too much power.

With this knowledge in mind, you’re ready to create gorgeous wash effects throughout your home!

Need more advice, or looking for product recommendations? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on 0116 321 4120 or send an email to cs@wled.co.uk.

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