Lighting a reading corner: floor lamp or wall light?

A reading corner asks for something different from the rest of the room: focused light, exactly where the book is, without turning the whole living room into a reading room.

Floor lamp: flexible and easy to place

The simplest solution. No drilling, you can move it if the sofa moves, and with an adjustable arm you aim the light exactly at the page.

Place the lamp diagonally behind your shoulder, not directly behind you, otherwise you cast your own shadow on the book. The bottom of the shade should be roughly at eye level when you are seated, so around 120 to 140 centimetres.

Wall light: a calmer look, a fixed spot

A wall light with an adjustable arm takes up no floor space and looks tidier. The downside: it is fixed, so the position of your chair is fixed too.

Hang it at about 140 centimetres from the floor, just beside the armchair. The same consideration applies next to the bed; how that works there is in how high should a lamp next to the bed hang.

How much light do you need?

For comfortable reading you want about 400 to 500 lumens aimed at the book. That is much more than the ambient lighting in the rest of the room, and exactly why the room lamp alone is not enough.

Choose warm white of 2700 kelvin and a dimmable lamp: fuller during the day, softer in the evening.

Why not just the ceiling light?

Light from directly above falls on your head and shoulders, not on the page. You then unconsciously sit crooked or tilt the book. A light source beside and slightly behind you makes reading calmer straight away.

For how to build up light in a living room, read why one lamp in the living room is not enough.

Back to the lighting guide