How high to hang bedside wall lights

Most guides answer this with a single number, usually somewhere between 150 and 165 cm from the floor. That number is fine for a hallway. Beside a bed it is close to useless, because the height that works depends on the mattress you already own and on how far the fitting reaches out from the wall.

Here is how to arrive at the right height for your room rather than a generic one.

Measure from the mattress, not the floor

Bed heights vary enormously. A low platform bed puts the mattress top around 40 cm off the floor. A divan with a deep mattress can sit at 70 cm. That is a 30 cm swing, and it is why floor-referenced advice falls apart.

The measurement that actually matters is the gap between the top of your mattress and the centre of the light. For a bedside fitting, 55 to 70 cm above the mattress is the working range.

• Towards 55 cm if you read sitting fairly upright against a headboard, or the fitting throws light downwards.
• Towards 70 cm if the light is decorative rather than a reading light, or if it throws light upwards and you want the wash to spread.

Sit on the bed as you would to read, and have someone hold the fitting against the wall before anything is drilled. Five minutes there saves a filled hole later.

Then the horizontal position

Centre the fitting roughly over the edge of the bedside table, not over the middle of it. That puts the light where your book is rather than where your glass of water is.

If there is no table, aim for 25 to 35 cm out from the side of the mattress. Closer than that and a fitting with any reach will catch your shoulder when you sit up.

The fitting's own reach changes the answer

This is the part the generic number cannot account for. A flat fitting that sits close to the wall behaves very differently from one on an arm.

Across our own wall lights, the spread is wide:

• The Stockholm sits 3.7 cm off the wall and runs 40 cm long. Almost no projection, so you can mount it lower without it getting in the way.
• The Bergamo is a 20 cm ring, lit from the inner edge. Its footprint on the wall is the thing to plan around.
• The Verona reaches 19 cm out from the wall on a brass-toned arm and stands 30 cm tall. That reach is deliberate, because it puts the light over the page rather than behind your head, but it needs more clearance from the bed.

As a rule: the further a fitting projects, the higher and further out it should go. A 19 cm arm at 55 cm above the mattress will be in your eyeline. The same arm at 68 cm will not.

Reading light or ambient light

Decide which job the fitting is doing before you decide the height, because they pull in opposite directions.

A reading light wants to be lower and closer, with the light source above and slightly behind your shoulder so the page is lit and the bulb is not in view. A fitting with a downward throw or an open-bottomed shade suits this.

An ambient light wants to be higher, so the wash spreads across the wall and the ceiling rather than pooling on the bedding. Fittings that throw up and down, or that glow from a diffuser rather than a bulb, suit this.

If you want both from one fitting, look for one that lets you set the colour temperature, and mount it in the middle of the range, around 62 cm above the mattress.

If you are replacing bedside lamps

The usual reason people switch is the bedside table. A lamp eats most of a small one. Moving the light onto the wall gives the surface back, which in a small bedroom is often the entire point.

Two things to plan for before you commit. First, you lose the ability to move the light later, so the placement has to be right the first time. Second, a wall light is switched at the wall or by a switch on the fitting itself, so think about whether you can reach it lying down.

Quick reference

• Height: 55 to 70 cm above the top of the mattress
• Horizontal: 25 to 35 cm out from the side of the mattress, or over the outer edge of the bedside table
• Deep-reaching fittings: go higher within the range, and further out
• Flat fittings: go lower within the range
• Both sides: match the heights to each other, not to the bedside tables, if the tables differ

Before you drill

Every wall light we sell is a hardwired fitting rather than a plug-in one, so there is a wiring question to settle first. We cover what that involves, and when it is notifiable work, in Do wall lights need an electrician?

Every listing on this site carries the real dimensions, taken from the manufacturer's own drawing rather than estimated, so you can plan the position before the box arrives. If a measurement you need is not on the page, email info@haloyard.com and we will get it for you.