Closet Lighting Ideas Without Wiring
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We’re sharing our closet lighting ideas without wiring. When you live in an older home and you don’t have any lighting in your closets, you can go wireless.
Great ideas for RV lighting, too.
We’ve lived in 11 homes during our marriage. Everything from big to small, brand new to 80 years old.
Our current home, Oak Cottage, is the oldest at 80 years old.
If you’ve lived in an older home, you already know that they lack many of today’s modern conveniences.
Kitchen pantries, closets (and closet lighting) and big bedrooms are luxuries that most older homes just don’t have.
While you can’t always do a whole lot about adding closet space, you can do something about the lighting, or lack thereof, in the closets that you do have.
How can I add a light to a closet without wire?
Our house has 3 small closets and one thing that they lack, besides space, is lighting. We lived a year or so in our cottage without until I began searching for a solution so I could see the clothes I was picking out.
We could have run wire ourselves or paid an electrician to come in and wire some lights, but I found an easy way…a DIY way.
Battery powered motion lights.
Motion lights have come a long way in recent years and there are many styles to choose from to fit your closet space.
I’ll share with you the lights that have worked best for us and how I hung them.
Wireless Closet Lighting
I used to fumble around in my bedroom closet in the dark looking for a certain shirt or pair of pants because I didn’t have a closet light.
Now that I discovered the many uses of wireless lighting, I’m able to find what I need so much easier.
I’ve had to get creative with wireless lighting before so I already knew all about them.
I wanted a light fixture in our kitchen over my DIY kitchen shelves, so I researched battery powered lights and created my own DIY wireless wall sconce.
The closet lights I’m using now are a bit different in that they have a motion sensor (as opposed to a switch or remote), which makes them so easy to use.
What type of lighting is best for closets?
I have found that LED lights are the best thing to use in my closets.
They are battery powered but the batteries last a long time and the light is surprisingly bright.
The first thing I look for with any kind of battery operated light, is the number of lumens.
What are lumens?
By definition lumens are a measure of the total amount of visible light that you see from a light source.
So essentially, the higher the lumen rating the brighter the light will appear.
So, for 2 of our bedroom closets I went with a light that had 100 lumens first and just recently switched to the 300 lumens.
There was definitely a noticeable difference.
For our RV linen closet, I went with something with 20 lumens (it’s advertised as a nightlight).
It’s a smaller space, which called for a lower profile light, so it worked out well.
It’s also motion sensing so it turns right on anytime I reach inside for linens or my toiletries.
Wireless Lights I recommend
- Mr. Beams Stick Anywhere Nightlight
- Mr. Beams 300 Lumens LED Ceiling Light
- Mr. Beams 100 Lumens LED Ceiling Light
- Mr. Beams Mini Spotlight, 80 Lumens
Hanging wireless closet lights
Hanging your new battery powered light is really easy and doesn’t require any power tools, although you can use a drill if you have it.
My new closet lights came with a mounting bracket, as well as screws and anchors. I screwed my mounting bracket into wood so I didn’t use anchors.
I know that most homes have closet ceiling lights, and you can put them there, but I chose to install my lights on the side wall.
My bedroom closet has an access for the attic in it so there wasn’t a good place to put it.
It sits right between the 2 closet rods and perfectly lights up my hanging clothes. No more fumbling around in the dark.
If you can’t hang a light in your closet, there are always other options.
I will confess that it took me a while to even hang my lights, even though it only takes a few minutes.
I had a smaller light that sat on the floor of my closet for a few months.
It worked well and I was able to see in my closet, but hanging it up on the wall definitely worked better.
We’ve also gone a little primitive and used a twist tie to hang a motion light from the closet clothes rod. Hey, it worked!
We needed extra lighting ASAP and this did the job.
What if you can’t or don’t want to screw into your walls to hang your lights?
The smaller lights (20 lumen nightlights) that I hung in our RV linen closet came with several adhesive strips, along with screws and anchors.
I didn’t use the adhesive in the RV (too much motion and temperature fluctuation) but I would definitely use them in the house.
These little battery operated lights would be a great idea for a dark kitchen cabinet or bathroom vanity.
So many great options! Now there’s no excuse to have dark closets anymore.
Check out my other wireless lighting idea…
