Brighten your Bedroom with Mirrors

How do I shorten the title “How to brighten your bedroom without buying lighting”? “Brighten Your Bedroom on a Dime?” “Tired of Being in the Dark?” I was stumped – I want this post Google friendly, but coming up with a way to combine ‘cheap’, ‘brighten’ and ‘bedroom’ escapes me….

So I’ll delve in;

I believe, and this hasn’t been formally diagnosed, that I suffer from S.A.D.

Sure, I’m on anti-depressants all year round (see this post for more info), but they don’t seem to work as well during the Winter months. The shortened days and fewer hours of sunshine leave me feeling a bit down. My Doctor suggested I up my Vitamin D intake by supplementing with vitamins, and he even suggested I buy a Vitamin D lamp and sit under it for 20 minutes per day.

Sounds expensive, time consuming and something I would probably not use.

I could bring more lamps into each room – but then you have to walk around and turn all of them on individually and then off again at bedtime – and frankly, I’m too lazy for all that.

I could have an electrician come in and install more pot lights throughout the house so that one switch would be the equivalent of living on the sun. Again, sounds a bit expensive.

If you are like me and just want a simple and inexpensive fix to bring more light into a room, try a mirror.

Mirrors on the walls are obvious, but have you considered adding mirrors to furniture?

Simple, portable mirrors that you can put on desktops to double the impact of your existing lighting.

Let me show you what I mean:

There was no editing done to these photos save for resizing and adding text – the rest is right from the camera.

See how adding a small mirror seems to double the light? It doesn’t hurt that it also hides my damaged nightstand as well.

Now look as I add the lamp back in:

again, no photo editing – the light really is doubled!

The below photo shows it better – you can see shadows from the lamp and flowers to the right of each – this is the shadow from the light streaming in from the nearby window.

You’ll see a second shadow above the first – that is the light reflecting from the window and then bouncing off of the mirror and back up the wall.

Does that make sense? Can you see the double shadows?

The same mirror effect with the lamp on and you can see how with just $10 I was able to double the effect of a single lamp.

(Sorry, there was a lot of reflection and I was trying not to reset my exposure settings to give you an honest image.)

You can get mirrors custom cut and have the edges professionally smoothed or bevelled, or you can go with a pre-made mirror (and therefore considerably less expensive) version like I did here.

No, this won’t cure S.A.D., but it will brighten your bedroom (or any room you wish) for very little money AND you can put your nighttime drink on it and it won’t wreck the wood! It’s a double-bonus!

Have a great one!

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