9 Lighting Ideas For Rooms Without Ceiling Lights

If a room in your house has no overhead lights, you might think that you’ll never be able to properly light it. That couldn’t be further from the truth – with lights designed for rooms without ceiling lights, you can completely reinvent your room’s aesthetic and have more control over its mood and decoration. The nine below lighting ideas for rooms without ceiling lights are prime examples.

Explore these ways to light a room without ceiling lights

If you’re lighting a room with no ceiling lights, try these easy-to-install alternatives that shine just as brightly.

1. Floor lamps

In a dark room, floor lamps can bring the night to life. Screw your light bulb into the floor lamp’s socket, then plug it in (unless it’s battery-powered) and let there be light! Just rotate the switch to power your lights – or, if you bought smart bulbs, use your phone or smart speaker to control your floor lamp’s brightness and power.

You can use especially tall and bright floor lamps in any part of your room to entirely replace ceiling lights. You can also use several floor lamps evenly distributed throughout a room or one lamp near a mirror for maximum lighting.

2. Plug-in wall sconces

The word “sconce” is the fancy interior design word for those eye-catching floating lamp posts that you’ve seen beautifully branching out from walls. You might think that since sconces are affixed to walls, you’ll need to call the electrician to install them, but with plug-in sconces, you get gorgeous wall lights without all that wiring. All you have to do is mount the sconce – after that, just plug and go!

Sconces are best arranged as a pair with one on each side of your bed, or you can evenly space several sconces throughout a hallway. You can also use them as decorative flair in your living room, but you might need additional fixtures for full room lighting.

3. Plug-in ceiling pendants

Here’s a mount-and-plug option that pairs nicely with living room sconces: Ceiling pendants. Plug-in pendant lights are super modern, plus you’ll often need just one or two for full room lighting.

To install your ceiling pendants, attach a hook to your ceiling, then wire the pendant’s cable through this hook. Run the pendant’s wire around your room so it blends with your walls and doesn’t run across your floor (lighting shouldn’t mean tripping hazards). Once you’ve got your pendant installed, just flick the wire’s on/off switch whenever it’s time to go dark. Keep the switch easily accessible but located just out of view.

4. LED strips

LED strips are great for accentuating darkly lit rooms with dim light for movie night or romantic dinners. If your kitchen lacks lighting, LED strips are especially good for under-cabinet lighting that illuminates your countertops.

You won’t have to drill holes or install hooks to mount LED strips. Just peel the adhesive backing off, gently affix your tape, and boom, you’re done. However, as easy as installation sounds, fully lighting a room with LED strips is close to impossible – they should be secondary, not primary, light sources.

5. String lights

Like LED strips, string lights typically work best as secondary light sources rather than your primary light source. That’s because, as pretty as they are, they’re not designed to be the main light in a room. They’re usually best for accentuating door and window frames or spaces above couches, beds, and large furniture pieces.

That said, some string lights work for full-room lighting. String lights with large, circle-like bulbs instead of the tiny, cylindrical bulbs often comprising string lights can provide ample room lighting, especially if you hang them from exposed pipes.

6. Table lamps

Another secondary light source, table lamps placed on side tables can fill spaces your floor lamps and pendants might not reach. They’re also great for task lighting if you’re reading or working. However, since their role is to illuminate smaller surface areas with modest amounts of light, you might want to consider some other lighting ideas for rooms without ceiling lights.

7. Portable lights

Why commit to lighting just one part of your room when you can use fixtures you can easily move? With portable lights, you can take your lighting with you from one dark room to another. Our StarPort Laser USB is a great example of a portable light for secondary lighting: It plugs into your laptop, wall port, or mobile charger, so you can easily move it between rooms. Wherever you go, it’ll fill your room with a brilliant backdrop for watching TV, gaming, or just lying back and relaxing.

StarPort USB Light

$14.99

One tiny light. Thousands of stars!

Shop Now arrow_forward

8. Star lights

Here’s a novel idea: Why go for just light when you could get patterns too? Enter star lights, a BlissLights specialty.

With star lights, your room becomes your own colorful utopia of not just an engrossing green, red, or blue but projections of stars and galaxies too. Our BlissBulb, for example, screws into any standard-base light fixture (that means floor lamps, ceiling sockets, table lamps, and even some pendant lights) and projects starry patterns from whichever direction it’s facing.

Our most popular item, the Sky Lite Evolve Galaxy Projector (which you’ll see all over TikTok), goes a step further. It doesn’t just project stars – with this projector that’s not much bigger than your hands, you’ll get stunning visuals of full-on galaxies. With this multicolor galaxy light, your room becomes a fully immersive space without ceiling lights, but with patterns that standard lights just can’t achieve.

Sky Lite Evolve: Smart Galaxy Projector

$49.99$39.99

The latest evolution in smart galaxy lighting.

Shop Now arrow_forward

9. Laser projectors

If you’re wondering how we can possibly give you both full room-lighting and beautiful patterns, well, just thank lasers. The Sky Lite and BlissBulb are both laser projectors.

Save money on replacing ceiling lights with BlissLights

Laser lighting isn’t just beautiful – it’s better for your budget too. At BlissLights, all our indoor home lighting options are affordable, and since lasers use far less energy than other forms of lighting, your electric bill will drop too. Plus, we offer free shipping on all U.S. orders over $50 – that means when you buy a Sky Lite directly from our website, you don’t pay for shipping. Browse all our lights to transform your darkest room into a well-lit sanctuary!