Five Ways To Light Up Your Home Without Hardwiring

Putting new light fittings in can be an expensive job – especially if you need to employ an electrical specialist to hardwire them in. If you’re in a home that you aren’t going to be in forever, you’re renting, or you simply don’t want to spend the money on an electrician, then you’ll be looking for alternatives to hardwired lighting. Luckily, there are loads of great options that mean you can light up your home stylishly without needing to break the bank. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the lighting options that you can simply plug in and start using, without needing to worry about hardwiring.

Ceiling Lighting

If you’re adding lighting to a room where there is a basic single lighting pendant with a dull bulb and a standard, boring lightshade, then you’re in luck, because you can make this situation better pretty easily! Changing the bulb is the first thing to do, and you can choose the right colour temperature and brightness for the room, and different bulbs can create really different effects.

Depending on the type of light shade you decide to swap to, you can get a bit more style by picking a decorative bulb with an exposed filament for additional visual interest as well as more brightness. Switching lightshades is really easy to do too, so if changing the light fitting to a more impressive one isn’t an option then this is the next best thing. To help the light bounce around the room, look for metallic or satin finishes and glass shades.

Our Picks For Ceiling Lighting

Floor Lamps

Floor lamps are possibly the easiest way to change the look and feel of a room – and there are so many styles of floor lamps available. Traditional standard lamps are a good option, but there are also uplighters, architectural lamps, industrial tripod lamps, arc lamps, and more. Most floor lamps simply require a plug socket to light them up, and they’re a good choice if you want great lighting that you can take when you move home, since they can be turned off, picked up and taken with you when you go.

Some floor lamps can be seen almost like artwork, especially styles that incorporate LEDs – and so you’re getting even more value for money. This can help personalise rented homes where changes such as putting pictures on walls isn’t allowed. In smaller spaces, a floor lamp with a movable head can provide both ambient light and reading light – perfection!

Our Picks For Floor Lamps

Table Lamps

Table lamps, desk lamps, bedside table lamps – they are all easy ways to add to the ambient light in a room, as well as providing the directional, functional light that you need. Smaller table lamps are perfect in workspaces, places where reading is to happen, as well as to create additional brightness in a room and the only thing you need is access to a power socket.

Table lamps are also incredible for bringing character to a room, at an affordable price – as you’ll see in our top picks.

Our Top Picks For Table Lamps

LED Strips And Candles

When you want to bring a little more ambience to a room without massively adding to the electricity bill, LED strips are definitely a great option. They can be added to cabinets – either above or below – and to light up inside cupboards. They’re incredibly easy to fit and to control, with many models controllable through your smart phone via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to change the brightness, and the colour of the lights, they can add ambience wherever you are in the home. The other great thing? They’re not expensive – and so they are perfect for homes that are on a budget.

Candles are often used to create a cosy, romantic feel in the home, but they aren’t always the right option, especially where children, pets, or vulnerable people are living. Manufacturers have taken tiny LED lights to create great battery operated candles – some with realistic flickering effects too. You won’t get the smell that you get from scented candles, but you also won’t have the risk of fire either.

Our Top Picks For LED Lighting

Outdoor Lighting

Lighting up the outside of your home is important if you’re going to keep your family safe from slips, trips, and falls during the hours of darkness – and that’s before we think about finding your key, and getting the key in the door. Rather than trying to use the torch on your phone to help, adding an outside light is an obvious solution. We recently wrote about 12v garden lights, which can be an option if you have an outside socket, but what if you don’t have mains power by your door, or you need to light an area further away from the mains power?

Battery powered outdoor lighting is an option, but an even better option is solar powered garden lighting, since it only requires sun on the solar panel to light up through the evening and into the night, and there are all types of solar lights, to suit all needs. We wrote a whole post about solar lighting here, so head there for the details.

Our Top Picks For Outdoor Lighting

Our Final Thoughts

Refreshing your home lighting doesn’t always require an electrician to come and fit new wiring, or spending huge amounts of money on new light fittings. As we’ve seen here, there are enough ways that you can light your home up with that don’t require lots of time and money. When you’ve decided on the right lighting for your home and you’ve styled your space, share it with us on Instagram – we’re @online_lighting.

Sarah Nunn

I’m Sarah, a writer and content creator with a big passion for interior design. Having recently bought my first home, the world of renovations and home décor has taken over my life in a way I never imagined. My house is full of mid-century furniture and colourful eccentricities – but my fascination with new season trends spans from Scandi minimalism to Art Deco extravagance.