How to light a garage
What is the best lighting for a garage?
Lighting for a multipurpose space
Home gym lighting ideas
What is the best lighting for a woodworking shop?
How to light a work shed
Garage and shed lights: materials and durability

In many homes, the garage is more than a place to park the car. Over time, the space evolves to accommodate growing needs acquiring storage shelves and work benches along the way. All homes and gardens require regular upkeep and the tools to go with it. Often, it’s the garage that serves as the hub for these everyday chores and DIY projects. Once you've read our guide check out or garage lighting collection to buy some new lights for your home.

How to Light a Garage

As a versatile space of storage, utility and even recreation, garage lighting plays an important role to complement the many functions of the space. If you are wondering how to light a garage effectively consider how you plan to use the space. To start with, a single light is all you may need to park the car at night, but to retrieve the right tools, nuts and bolts from your storage shelves or for precision work such as woodworking, you would require different sources of light. In other words, layers of light are required to turn your garage into an effective and functional space.

When it comes to hard-wired lighting, the Building Code of Australia has stringent energy efficiency requirements. For garage lighting, the wattage is limited to three watts per square metre of floor space (3W/sqm). Keeping this in mind, we have put together a comprehensive guide so that you can customise garage lighting ideas according to your needs. If you are looking at a new home build or a renovation, a lighting layout can help you achieve optimum garage lighting placement.

General Lighting

This is the primary source of lighting that provides overall and ambient illumination for a space. As with any room in your home, overhead lighting supplies this layer of lighting for your garage. It should adequately cast light on the walls and floor area for good visibility to safely park your car. For a high ceiling garage, pendant lights with robust style and build can be used, spaced out to achieve a sufficient spread of light. However, for a smaller garage or one with a low ceiling, flush mounts or linear lighting is preferable. 

While tube lights or linear lights provide greater coverage of uniform and high definition illumination, a cost-effective and traditional choice for garage spaces is fluorescent tube lighting. Given that a garage space is often exposed to the elements and devoid of any temperature control, it’s important to know that many fluorescent tubes do not work reliably in cold temperatures. Tubes with T5 or T8 fixtures mitigate this issue as not only are they more energy efficient, they also come with electronic ballasts to withstand temperature drops. LED tubes, on the other hand, may cost more at the outset, but they are more energy efficient and have a far greater lifespan than fluorescent tubes.

Ensure that LED or fluorescent tubes are evenly spaced to eliminate shadows, reducing the need for supplementary lights. Depending on the dimensions of your space, track lighting or linear lights and multi light flush mounts are other suitable general lighting choices for a garage space. These garage lights are constructed from robust materials or paired with caged guards to withstand the elements, and often bear an industrial design aesthetic.

Task Lighting

When drawing up a garage lighting layout, ample attention must be paid to task lighting. Home to work benches, machinery and shelves stocked with tools and trinkets, the garage can frequently turn into a task-oriented space. Whether you are tinkering with your car, mixing and prepping paints or undertaking a DIY woodworking project, the right lighting is essential for functionality as well as safety.

Having organised your garage, adequate lighting is necessary to easily retrieve what you need, when you need it. While shelves often create shadows and dark recesses, under shelf LED strip lights offer a simple solution to brighten up narrow spaces or closed units. It comes with the added advantage of customisable length to suit shelf size.

If that’s not a viable option for your garage, a well-placed wall light such as a caged bunker light or adjustable two light LED spotlight can also resolve the problem. The placement of these wall lights depends largely on the layout and complexity of your garage. If it’s your intention to minimise the number of lights used, a wall light over a work bench that sits adjacent to your shelving unit, will cast light on your storage shelves as well. If your work bench is zoned separately, a hanging linear light is also suitable and gives more coverage with light spread evenly across the surface.

For a simple and cost-effective solution, the clip-on table lamp is a portable and convenient alternative that eliminates the need for any hardwiring. Similarly, using plug-in options such as swing arm wall lights and caged pendant lights are simple and efficient ways to adhere to the wattage limit on garages.


Accent Lighting

As mentioned above, the garage is more than a storage space or tool shed in many homes. Lighting offers an effective means to personalise and create atmosphere in your workshop or recreational mancave. 

Loft Pendant with Cage	Radiator LED Tubelight	Shorehouse Outdoor Flush Mount	Radiator Tube Wall Light	Superlux Large Desk Lamp

What is the Best Lighting for a Garage?

Considering the limitations on wattage, it’s important to derive the most out of each light source. This is where lumens play an important role which is a measure of the light output per watt. The size of the space must be considered as well; a bulb with 500 lumens will have far greater impact over one square metre compared to a 10 square metre space. 

As a guide, 150-200 lumens/sqm for general lighting and 700-800 lumens/sqm for detailed tasks are recommended for a garage. The dimensions of the space and bulb lumens together will determine the number of lights needed for a well-lit space. To gain a general idea of the correlation between wattage and lumens, a 5-8W LED or a 7-9W CFL produces a light output of 500 lumens. Have a read of our Light bulb buying guide for in-depth information.

Lighting for a Multipurpose Space

As mentioned above, a garage space can take many forms depending on needs and interests. Certain hobbies can take off well enough to turn into lucrative home businesses, effectively transforming your space into a buzzing workshop. If your garage is home to a woodworking shop, lighting accuracy needs to be considered as well. Maybe all you need is a makeshift gym for your daily workouts. Either way, lighting solutions and ideas are required to cater to versatile needs. So, we’ve put together a few tips and tricks to get you started.

Home gym lighting ideas

There’s a reason why fitness studios are so brightly lit. For intensive workouts that involve more movement, good lighting is important to see clearly and avoid injury. Low light, on the other hand lowers your body awareness and sense of balance. Studies have shown that higher levels of performance are achieved when exposed to bright lights.

Draw in as much day light as possible, as it effectively awakens your senses. Alertness drives energy, which in turn will positively impact your performance. Where natural light is limited, or if it is in the evenings that gyming is possible, having a lighting solution that mimics daylight is your best option. This means fixtures that offer a colour temperature of 5000K or more. For the best gym lighting, overhead fixtures are most suitable as it produces an even spread and will offer the best lighting for mirrors as well. If there’s skipping and throwing of medicine balls involved in your routine, avoid using low hanging lights or pendant lights that could get in the way. If you plan to have a gym in your garage, evenly spaced linear or ceiling lights that provide general lighting for your garage will suffice for a home gym as well.

On the other hand, activities like yoga and winding down require mellow lighting and atmosphere. Installing lights in conjunction with a dimmer may be the most convenient option provided you use dimmable bulbs. If this is not a viable option, a supplementary fixture such as a pendant light or plug-in table lamp featuring natural materials to add a touch of warmth could do the trick.

What is the best lighting for a woodworking shop?

The garage is the ideal space for woodworking where you can safely operate machinery and a host of other tools. Woodworking involves colour sensitive projects requiring the ability to see true colours. This in turn requires lighting solutions that produce a realistic depiction of materials such as timber, metal, paint and stains. A bulb’s CRI or Colour Rendering Index also denoted as Ra is a measure of how well the bulb renders the spectrum of colours. While you can make sure to include a bulb with the required CRI value for your light, some fixtures have a built-in light source.

The CRI value of bulbs and fixtures is not always readily available and may take further enquiry on your part. Ensure you choose bulbs or fixtures with a high CRI, ideally above 85 with 100 representing daylight or midday.

It’s not only the CRI that influences how you see colour, but colour temperature of the light source is also an important factor. For garages, a cool white or neutral hue is suitable to see details clearly and falls within the kelvin range of 3300K and 5300K.

How to light a work shed

Much like the garage, the shed is also an extension of your home that can be repurposed or reinvented to meet varying needs. Usually a storage for garden tools, the shed can also be a home to an art studio or where you run a small home-based business. Accordingly, shed light requirements vary based on its purpose, size and orientation.

If your shed is a burgeoning workshop or man cave, then artificial lighting is the most practical solution. While windows are ideal during the day to brighten this small space, by sundown, another source of light is necessary to make your space useable any time of the day. As with garage lighting, the 3W/sqm limitation applies to sheds as well. Although at a smaller scale, the same principles of colour temperature and light output apply if you are wondering how to simulate natural light in a dark shed. A single pendant light placed centrally, such as a high bay or a caged pendant light will suffice to light up a modest sized shed.

For more focused lighting over a work bench, a hanging linear light or wall light with a high output or lumens can provide for your work as well as the entire shed. If a shed is your place of business or home industry, lighting is also a way to personalise and reflect your personal brand. Gooseneck wall lights, brass caged pendant lights and bunker lights are choices of shed lights that can add atmosphere and aesthetic value to a space. Outdoor wall lights can also be added to the exterior facade to make a style statement in addition to its functional purpose.

Exterior Garage Lighting Ideas

Garage and shed lights: materials and durability

Unlike indoor spaces in your home, shed and garage spaces are more exposed to the elements. Consequently, safety must be considered when it comes to lighting. This is where the ingress protection or IP rating of a fixture comes into play. Below is a table of what the two digits of the IP rating represent to help you decided which lights are suitable for your space. The required rating is based on the level of exposure and how you plan to use your space. It’s always best to consult an electrician when choosing lighting for exposed areas.

Exterior lights, such as façade lights will need higher ratings to withstand wet conditions among other elements. These lights often come in robust builds constructed from hardwearing materials. Bare metal brass, marine grade steel and cage guards are often used in the making of these lights. Bunker lights are a category that often feature these robust builds and materials making them ideal for use in exposed settings and garages.

Westview Concrete LED Exterior Spotlight	Middy Copper Up Down LED Spotlight	Copper Railway Outdoor  Wall Light	Oval Caged Bunker Light	Yardly Adjustable LED Floodlight

If you are still stuck for ideas get in touch with our friendly team at Fat Shack Vintage. We’re always on call to assist in creating the perfect space.