LED Lighting by Room

Choosing LED lighting room by room comes down to three decisions, and they are the same three decisions every time: how much protection the fitting needs against water and dust, what colour temperature suits what happens in the room, and how the light gets mounted so nobody sees the diodes. Get those right and the rest is shopping.

This page groups our LED strips, aluminium profiles, drivers and controls by where they go. Each room page below covers the mounting positions that work, the ones that look amateurish, and the components that finish the job.

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Choose your room

  • Kitchen LED Lighting - under cabinet runs, plinth lighting, worktop task light

  • Bathroom LED Lighting - mirror backlighting, IP-rated strip, niche and shower lighting

  • Bedroom LED Lighting - headboard, under bed, perimeter cove

  • Living Room & Media Wall - TV backlighting, media wall recesses, coving

  • Hallway & Stairs Lighting - step lighting, low-level wall fittings, motion control

  • Wardrobe & Dressing Room - rail and shelf lighting, sensor-switched runs

  • Garage & Workshop - high-CRI task light over benches

  • Gaming Room - RGB and addressable strip, desk and wall zones

  • Home Cinema - bias lighting, riser edges, step markers

  • Home Office - shelf and desk task lighting, flicker and glare control

The three variables that decide everything

Pick the IP rating first, the colour temperature second, and the profile third. Reverse that order and you end up returning things.

Room Typical IP requirement Colour temperature that works Where the light usually goes
Kitchen IP20 under cabinets, IP67 within reach of a sink or hob 3000-4000K Under wall units, plinth, open shelving
Bathroom IP20 in dry enclosed positions, IP67 in wet zones 3000-4000K Behind mirror, niche, under vanity
Bedroom IP20 2700-3000K Headboard, under bed, perimeter cove
Living room IP20 2700-3000K Behind TV, media wall recess, coving
Hallway and stairs IP20 indoors 2700-3000K Step nosings, low-level wall, skirting
Wardrobe IP20 3000-4000K Above hanging rail, under each shelf
Garage and workshop IP20 in a heated build, IP67 where it is unheated or damp 4000-6500K Above bench, under upper shelving
Gaming room IP20 RGB or RGBW Desk edge, wall perimeter, behind monitor
Home cinema IP20 2700K Behind screen, riser edges, ceiling cove
Home office IP20 4000K Under shelves, above desk

The IP number is not marketing. It comes from IEC 60529 and reads left to right: first digit for solids, second for water. IP20 means no protection against water at all. IP65 means dust-tight and protected against low-pressure water jets. IP67 means dust-tight and protected against temporary immersion, which is why it is the rating to reach for wherever water is a real possibility rather than a theoretical one.

Across our range that translates into three builds. White, CCT, RGBW and digital tapes come in IP20 for dry positions and IP67 where they get wet. Neon flex is IP67 throughout. The sauna LED strip is a separate IP65 build in a silicone casing for ambient temperatures up to 100°C, because in a sauna the thing that kills a strip is heat, not water.

UK bathroom zones are defined by BS 7671. Check the requirement for your specific zone against the current edition before you order, because the zones matter more than the room name: a strip 300 mm from a basin and a strip inside a shower enclosure are not the same install.

Colour temperature is a judgement call, not a spec. Warm white at 2700K reads as evening light and suits rooms people relax in. Neutral white at 4000K keeps colours honest, which is why it belongs over a worktop and inside a wardrobe where you pick clothes. Cool white at 6000K and above has one home in a house: the workshop.

What every room build actually needs

A finished LED run is four parts. Skip any of them and the result looks like a strip stuck to a wall, because that is what it is.

The strip. COB LED strip gives a continuous line with no visible dots, which is why it has taken over from SMD for anything visible at close range: under a cabinet, along a shelf, behind a mirror. Our COB range runs from 9.6 to 19 W per metre depending on output, in colour temperatures from 2200K ultra warm white through to 6500K, at CRI90+. For colour changing, RGB strip covers mood lighting and SPI digital strip drives per-pixel effects. CCT strip shifts between warm and cool on one run, which solves the kitchen problem of wanting 4000K for prep and 2700K for the evening. Browse the full LED strips and tapes range to compare.

The profile. An aluminium profile does two jobs at once: it acts as a heat sink, and the diffuser turns a line of diodes into a line of light. Heat is the reason strips fail early, so a profile is not a finishing touch, it extends the life of the strip. Surface profiles screw straight to a cabinet base. Recessed profiles sit flush in a routed groove. Plaster-in profiles disappear into the ceiling with no visible frame, which is what a media wall or a cove needs. Corner profiles throw light at 45 degrees, the standard answer for under-cabinet lighting. Diffuser choice changes the result as much as the strip does, so see diffusers and covers.

The driver. Every strip needs a driver or power supply matched to voltage and total load. Add headroom instead of running a driver at its ceiling. For anything hidden inside a cabinet or ceiling void, look at enclosed power supplies; for consumer units and plant rooms, DIN rail supplies.

The control. This is where most installs are under-specified. A wardrobe wants a door sensor, not a switch. A staircase wants motion detection. A bedroom wants a dimmer that goes low enough to be usable at 2 a.m. A media wall wants a controller. Decide the control at the same time as the strip, because retro-fitting a sensor into a finished cabinet means taking the cabinet apart.

Why our strips run at 24V

Our white, CCT, digital and long-run tapes are 24V throughout. A small number of RGB and RGBW SMD tapes are 12V, for short retrofit runs where a 12V supply is already in place.

Voltage drop is the whole argument. Current travelling down a copper track loses voltage along the way, and the far end of a long 12V run comes out visibly dimmer than the near end. Doubling the supply voltage halves the current for the same power, which cuts that loss. Under a single 600 mm cabinet either voltage works. On a continuous perimeter cove around a living room, 12V does not.

Where a long unbroken line matters and you cannot get a driver close to the midpoint, long LED strip built for extended runs solves it without splitting the circuit.

FAQ

1. What IP rating do I need for kitchen lights?

IP20 is enough for under-cabinet and plinth lighting, because nothing there is exposed to splashing. Move up to IP67 where the run passes close to a sink or a hob extraction gap, and check whether the strip sits inside a profile that already shields it from above.

2. Are LED strip lights good for under kitchen cabinets?

Yes, and they are the standard solution rather than a compromise. Mount the strip in a corner profile so the light aims at the worktop instead of into the room, and choose COB rather than SMD so the diodes do not reflect as a row of dots in a gloss surface.

3. Can I put LED strip behind a bathroom mirror?

Yes. Backlighting a mirror is one of the most common uses for LED strip in a bathroom. The strip sits in a profile on the back of the mirror, set in from the edge, and throws light onto the wall behind. Match the IP rating to the zone the mirror sits in.

4. Do stair lights need to be 12V?

No. Low voltage is the usual choice for step lighting because the fittings are small and often recessed into timber or plaster, but that means 24V just as much as 12V. Our step and tile-in profiles are built around 24V tape, which is also the right answer once a stair run gets long.

5. Why do my LED lights look different colours along one run?

Almost always one of three causes: mixed batches with different bin tolerances, voltage drop dimming the far end, or a driver running at its limit. Check the driver load first, because it is the cheapest thing to rule out.

6. How long do LED strips last?

Marc LED strips are rated at 50,000 hours and above. That figure assumes the strip is mounted in an aluminium profile acting as a heat sink, because the same strip glued directly to a plasterboard wall runs hotter and degrades faster. Sizing the driver above the load rather than at it matters for the same reason.