What kind of light bulbs would be best in a bedroom with no windows?

Question

I am moving into a basement bedroom with no windows and I think I once heard about light bulbs that a made for that environment. Some kind of light that is not depressing?

Answer 1

In order to achieve natural balanced sunlight indoors, your light bulbs must contain a full spectrum of color. Additionally, true full spectrum lighting must contain infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths.

Fluorescent bulbs are the only type of bulbs that currently produce complete and healthy full spectrum lighting.

Correlated Color Temperature is a scale used to describe temperature in degrees Kelvin (abbreviated as 'K'). The CCT rating for a lamp is a general indication of the warmth or coolness of its appearance. As CCT increases, that means the appearance of the source light has shifted from reddish-white toward bluish-white; in other words, the higher the color temperature, the cooler the color appearance.

The other term you should understand, the Color Rendering Index or CRI, describes how a light source makes the color of an object appear to human eyes; how well subtle variations in color shades are revealed. CRI is expressed as a rating from 0 to 100; the higher the CRI rating, the better its color rendering ability.

So when shopping for "full spectrum bulbs", look for those with a CCT rating above 4100K and a CRI above 90.

Answer 2

I live in the basement of my parents home.  While I have a window, it's completely covered up and hardly any light comes through.  I decided to go with one of those florescent tube lights that you can just nail into the walls.  It gives off soft yet bright light; enough so I have no problems reading comfortably.  As for the bulbs, I've only changed one of the two in the past 2.5 years.  (Make sure it says soft white.)

Also, the flat white paint on the walls made the room a bit depressing and feel like a box.... so I decided to color wash it with two different shades of blue, which added depth to the room and made it my perfect place to relax.

Hope that helps you!