



A big part of my extreme home office makeover was setting up ambient lighting around my desk and keyboard using inexpensive LED rope lights. Many of you were interested in more details, so let's take a look at the step-by-step of my desk setup, and how to incorporate ambient lighting into other living spaces the same way.


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The core of my ambient lighting system is inexpensive LED rope lighting. I purchased my LED rope lights for ~$8 per 18 foot strand. Here's a 12-footer for under 10 bucks on Amazon.

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Conveniently, the strands come with tension clips. While these clips are there to secure the lighting to the side of a home around the holidays, they work just as well for securing the lighting to the underside of the desk. Despite facing downward the clips are more than strong enough to hold the roping in place (see the image on the right). If the clips weren't included, I would have used small zip ties and a staple gun to safely secure the roping.






The diagram below is a bird's eye view of the the lighting system layout under my desk. To keep things simple I drew it as though the desk were clear and you could see the underpinnings.






The two large black rectangles are the file cabinets, and the smaller rectangle is the mounting plate for the keyboard tray. The yellow line is the LED strand, the blue dots are the clips securing the strand to the desk, and the green line is the wire connecting the push button switch, the red dot, to the outlet.


The push button switch is actually a foot switch, the kind commonly used to turn Christmas tree lights on and off. I stuck it to the underside of the desk with mounting tape. Prior to adding it to the light system, I had to plug and unplug the cord for the LED lights which made me use the lighting less frequently. The easier it is to turn your lights on, the more often you will.





The ambient light around the desk proved to be so enjoyable in the office, that I used the leftover ropes in the master and guest bedrooms. Check out the following two pictures from the master bedroom. I used the same techniques in the other bedrooms.


Just as I secured the rope lighting to the bottom of the desk, I attached it to the back of the two wardrobes. Both are turned on an off by a foot switch, as is the under bed lighting. The lighting under the bed is attached loosely to the slats of the bed frame with zip ties. The rope lights don't get more than a few degrees warmer than the room itself thanks to the efficiency of the LEDs inside, making them a safe choice for the bed.






What started as an attempt to light up my keyboard with some LED rope lights I scammed from the bargain bin at a local big box store ended with soothing ambient light in both my office and bedrooms. If you pursue your own ambient lighting project, make sure to share the results in the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Flickr group.

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