5 Essential Tips for Lighting your Sewing Room

Are you having a hard time with lighting your sewing room? If so, we understand. Lighting your sewing room is one of the most important things that you can do to create a productive space for your sewing projects. 

To effectively light your sewing room, we recommend using a lot of natural light, using accent lights, ceiling lights with LED or also track lighting. These types of lighting will definitely help you create a well-lit space with ample light to help you prevent eye strain and keep your room clutter-free.

Additionally, a well-lit space will also help you create high quality garments and keep you super productive.

The Benefits of Having a Well-Lit Sewing Room

Basically, there are three benefits to having a well-lit sewing room. These are the following:

Protects you from Eye Strain

The most important benefit of having a well-lit sewing room is to prevent eye-strain. 

Remember that all your sewing activity involves exact precision that often requires prolonged durations of staring at your thread, needle, and garment to check if you are working on the correct pattern.

While it may be a taxing activity for your eyes, you can relieve them from unnecessary stress by ensuring you are working in a well-lit area.

A pro-tip is that your sewing room or area should have as much natural light as possible. This is because some artificial lights emit bright or harsh lights, it is best to have as much natural light in your sewing space as much as possible.

Sewing safety and security

Many sewing paraphernalia and tools that you left unattended with sewing can potentially harm you! 

Think about all your pins, needles, scissors, and cutters – these are all sharp tools that can harm you if they are not organized or stored away correctly. 

By having a well-lit room, you significantly reduce the risk of either accidentally stepping on these sharp objects, or you might accidentally trip on something and fall hard on these sharp objects. 

In addition to this, keeping a clean and well-organized space will also help reduce tripping hazards and accidents in your sewing space. This includes making sure that your sharp tools are stored away when they are not in use.

Higher Productivity

The Hawthorne Effect is a study conducted back in the mid-1920s to find out more about workplace productivity.

The studies had two groups – one group working in a well-lit environment, the other group in a much darker environment. 

According to the results, the group working in a well-lit environment was significantly more productive (meaning they had more results) than the group who worked in a darker environment.

This means that you feel more energized working in a well-lit sewing room and producing more quality results than working with a not-so-well-lit area. 

Hopefully, the reasons above can convince you to invest a little more in having your well-lit sewing area. Now, here are some of the best sources of light when it comes to illuminating your sewing room! 

Top Tips for Creating a Well-Lit Sewing Space

1. Natural Lighting (is the best)

Use natural lighting as much as you possibly can.  Natural light has the brightest light possible that will make you see things clearly and can significantly reduce potential eye strain. 

As we previously mentioned, some of the artificial types of light are either too bright or too harsh that can worsen instead of alleviating eye strain due to sewing activities.

However, it is important to note that the Ultraviolet rays from the sun can ruin your garment by making it look faded, so you also must balance having natural light to illuminate your room and overexposing your fabric to the harsh UV rays of the sun.

Here are some tips to ensure that you have as much natural light in your sewing area as possible.

Use mirrors

Having a mirror even in the darkest and smallest space can do wonders when it comes to brightening up your sewing room. You can use a room to amplify whatever natural light your room has and magnify it tenfold.

Pick a door with a built-in window

Doors are big blocks or chunks that are useful to ward off possible intruders (and have your privacy).

Still, it also makes your room significantly darker and reduces the amount of natural light, especially if you have few windows in your room.

To have as much natural light in your room, make sure to pick a door that already has a built-in window. In this way, you can just put blinds or door curtains during your idle time and then choose to open your window whenever you are sewing.

Light or neutral gray walls

One misconception is that white walls encourage natural light. When choosing a wall color, opt for light gray walls because white walls may be a tad bit harsher to your eyes when combined with natural light.

Grey walls, on the other hand, are cooler to the eyes and will prevent eye strain.

Skip the blinds

Choose to skip the blinds and opt to open your window! Not only will it give the illusion of a more bigger room, but it will also encourage as much natural light you need to work on your sewing!

Window trimmings are important

In trying to get as much natural light as you want in your room, attention to detail is critical. Have you checked out your window trimmings? 

You might think that they are just there for aesthetic purposes, but little did you know that they also have a role to play in making your room brighter.

Choose a white wide rim window trimming to create the illusion that you have a larger window to brighten up your space.

Invest in white, airy curtains

Say goodbye to dark window treatments and start redecorating your room with white, airy curtains!

Aside from its IG-worthy looks, using sheer white curtains allow more natural light into your room. 

Opt for a minimalist look

While this does not technically directly impact how bright your room will be, it does make your room feel larger. 

Making sure that your sewing space is free of clutter and organized will do wonders in adding to the illusion that your space is bright and airy – which is perfect for your sewing activities!

2. Add Accent Lights

Accent lights are ones that you can use to light up specific areas in your sewing rooms. Here are some of the most popular types of accent lighting that you can use to brighten your space: 

Floor lamps

Floor lamps like these Rottogoon LED Lamps are added primarily to the corners of sewing rooms to add more light those areas. 

If you do plan on using a floor lamp, make sure that its sturdy and has an LED light so that you can position it next to your sewing machine when working on sewing projects.

Desk lamps

Desk lamps are perfect for sewing in a cramped space and do not have enough room for a sturdy floor lamp. 

However, before investing in a desk lamp, its a great idea to make sure that your sewing table has enough space for you to put your desk lamp. 

Also, consider purchasing a clip-on desk lamp that is a space saver – all you must do is clip it on the edge of your sewing table, and you have all the light you need!

Lamps with magnifying features

For those who have a hard time with small sewing tools and find themselves squinting hard now and then, consider purchasing a magnifying lamp. 

It works just like your average lamp, and lights up a portion of your space, but it has the added feature of magnifying what you see through the patented LED bulb technology. This is a perfect tool to reduce eye strain.

3. Ceiling Lights 

A ceiling light is lights that are permanently installed in the ceiling. The majority of homes and rooms have ceiling lights installed because they can quickly illuminate a wide area of the room as it is located above. 

Let us look at the different ceiling lights that can help you brighten up your space.

Flush mount lights 

The flush mount light has a unique design as it has a dome-shaped light fixture installed in your ceiling. 

This is ideal for installing if your sewing room has a lower ceiling because of how the bulb and the ceiling are positioned to keep your bulb clean from debris and dust for a long time.

Track lights

Track lights are a series of lights installed in an elongated rack. Consider using a track light in your sewing area if it is in a dim spot that other light sources cannot reach.

Tube lights

Tube lights are your typical fluorescent lamp. Many homes and rooms install tube lights because it is cheap, and it is easy in the eyes.  You can use a tube light (or two) to brighten up your room!

4. Recessed Lights

Recessed light is a circular type of light that is installed in the hollow part of the ceiling. One benefit of using a recessed light is that it covers a wide space! 

If you have a reasonably big sewing area and want to maximize the light in your room, consider using recessed lights instead.

5. Ring Light with LED

A LED ring light illuminates objects at a remarkably close distance, similar to how your magnifying light operates.

If you are working on something that needs accuracy and precision, consider purchasing a LED ring light to clearly see what you are working on and reduce eye strain.

Wrapping up the Post

We hope that you enjoyed this post and walk away with some ideas for creating a productive and well-lit sewing space.  

Thanks so much for reading and Happy Sewing!