5 Ways You Can Use Rope Lights Indoors

If you’ve used rope lights in the past, then there’s a good chance you’ve strung them up in your backyard for parties or wound them around banisters and draped them over your mantel for the holidays. Have you ever wondered how to use rope lights indoors for everyday use? Most people rely on a variety of lighting options for different situations. You have bright, overhead lighting for practical purposes like cooking and cleaning.  Perhaps you rely on table lamps for more comfortable lounging activities like reading. You might have activity-specific lighting for working at a desk in your home office or putting on makeup. LED rope light options can also be used in a variety of ways indoors, for both practical and decorative purposes. You needn’t reserve this form of lighting for one month out of the year when the holidays roll around or for backyard summer shindigs. Here are a few creative rope light ideas you might want to try in your home.

1. Around Mirrors

Installing additional lighting fixtures around mirrors to enhance the brightness in your bathrooms, bedrooms, or other areas of the home can be pricy. If you need more lighting for utilitarian purposes like shaving or applying cosmetics, for example, think about running rope lighting around the perimeter of the mirror.  This will help brighten the space, bounce light, and add all the illumination you need. Even if you don’t necessarily require additional wattage for such practical purposes, you can still add rope lights around mirrors or backlight mirror casings for decorative effect. You can apply the same tactic to art or photos, as well as window and door frames, just for example.

2. On Stairs

Staircases provide more than just a way for people to move between upper and lower levels in a structure. They’re also an architectural feature, and one that you can draw attention to by running rope lighting along baseboards on the side of the staircase, under the lip of each stair, or even underneath a handrail. Rope lighting on staircases can serve a dual purpose, as well.  These lights can provide not only decorative appeal, but also a measure of safety. By hooking lighting up to motion sensors, you can ensure that family members and guests need not stumble up or down stairs in the dark.

3. Curtains of Light

Beaded curtains were once all the rage (and they still are for college students living off-campus). Lately, the style is to replace traditional doors in the home with sliding barn doors that take up less interior space. You might also consider the decorative appeal of using rope lighting to create curtains of light. You might not want to replace the bathroom door, for example, since privacy might be an issue. However, placing a waterfall of light between common rooms, like the dining room and living room (or other recreation and entertainment areas) could make for a unique form of illumination and separation of spaces. Another option is to weave rope lighting into canopies over beds or seating areas. Whether you merely add them to the top of the canopy in lieu of a ceiling light or you drape them down the back and sides of a piece of furniture, you can use lighting to spectacular effect.

4. In Display Cases

Display cases are meant to be seen, as are the items you place inside. Whether you’re using shelving to showcase your collectibles, volumes of literature, or dish ware, adding LED rope lights can help to emphasize the items you want to display, even while adding light to your interior spaces.

5. As Custom Wall Art

Some homeowners prefer to hang traditional, framed artwork and photos on their walls, whether they illuminate these pieces with strip lights or not. Others would rather think outside the box, and LED rope lights can add a beautiful and unique element to a number of different wall treatments. For example, you could attach them to the back of driftwood, stacked rocks, antlers, or even industrial finds like giant gears before hanging them on walls as a means of making your “artwork” stand out. You could also create custom cutouts from wood to mount on your walls and backlight these with rope lights. As an alternative, the lights themselves could become the art when you attach them to wiring to create shapes (hearts, stars, etc.) or spell words like family names or inspirational words or phrases. If you truly want to make your decor unique, this is the best way to create one-of-a-kind displays with rope lights.