After you’ve chosen the perfect paint color, furniture, and décor for your living room, the last thing is choosing your light bulbs.
Light bulbs may seem like an afterthought item you just pick up at the store, but they’re much more than that. The type of light bulb you choose can change the entire look of your living room.
So, daylight vs. soft white for living rooms – which is best? Soft white bulbs are best for living rooms because they give off a warm, yellowish glow that provides a cozy atmosphere. Daylight bulbs give off a bright white light that can be harsh and cold.
This doesn’t mean daylight bulbs can’t be used in a living room or don’t have their place in the house. There are plenty of ways to use daylight bulbs.
We’ll review everything you need to know when choosing to use soft white or daylight bulbs in your living room. You’ll learn all the characteristics of each bulb, how to choose between them, and when it’s best to use soft white or daylight bulbs in your living room.
Light Bulb Basics
Before we dive in comparing daylight bulbs and soft white bulbs, it’s important that you understand a little bit about light bulbs in general. Light bulbs are all rated by different systems.
One is the lumen rating, which tells you the brightness of the light bulb. A lumen rating of around 800 is average for a bright light bulb that you’d want to use in your home.
There’s also the wattage, which indicates how much electricity the light bulb will use. Before choosing your wattage, check your lighting fixture. Lamps and overhead lights will have a maximum wattage printed somewhere on the fixture.
Be sure to keep your wattage at or underneath the maximum wattage stated. You can maximize your light while keeping the wattage down by using LED lights.
The one system that’s going to be the most important for this article is the color temperature.
The color temperature of a light bulb is measured on the Kelvin temperature scale. The higher the Kelvin rating, the cooler the light is. The lower the Kelvin rating, the warmer the light is.
You can find the Kelvin rating on the box of the light bulb you’re considering. Just like food has nutrition facts on the box, light bulbs have lighting facts on the side.
The color temperature is the main difference between daylight bulbs and soft white bulbs. Let’s explore the details below.
What Are Daylight Bulbs?
Daylight bulbs are light bulbs that are designed to mimic natural daylight.
If you have large open windows, try turning off all your lights on a sunny day and take a look around the room. You’ll likely notice that the room seems more white and cool with just the natural sunlight.
This is what you can expect from daylight bulbs. In looking at the Kelvin scale, daylight bulbs range anywhere from 4600-6500K. For comparison, natural daylight with a clear sky and the sun overhead is rated at around 5000-6500K.
From those numbers, you can see that daylight bulbs truly are design to imitate the look of natural daylight.
What Are Soft White Bulbs?
Soft white bulbs are what you are probably used to seeing in your home or in other people’s homes.
Unlike daylight bulbs, soft white bulbs give off a warm, yellow-ish glow. It’s a tinted light, but that color tint is what makes it give off such a warm and cozy feel.
Soft white bulbs range from 2700-3000K in color temperature. For comparison, a sunrise or sunset during a clear sky with no clouds is rated around 3000-4000K.
Although it may seem like soft white bulbs would be too dim to use, it’s this dimmer look (when compared to daylight bulbs) that makes them ideal for living rooms and other rooms where people gather.
How To Choose The Right Bulb For Your Living Room
There are a lot of factors to consider when you’re trying to choose the right bulb for your living room. Let’s dive in and evaluate each one.
1. Windows
The amount of natural sunlight you get into your living room will help determine whether you need daylight or soft white bulbs.
If your living room is in the basement, or only has one or two small windows, you may want to consider daylight bulbs. Daylight bulbs can help brighten up the space and not have it feel so dark and closed in.
If your living room has a lot of large windows, or even has two large sliding glass doors that open onto a patio, you can use soft white bulbs.
You’ll likely get enough daylight during the day that if you even need to turn on a lamp or overhead light at all, soft white bulbs will add the perfect amount.
In the evenings after the sun goes down, you’ll enjoy the warm, dim glow of the soft white bulbs in comparison to the bright daylight you’ve had all day.
2. Room Use (Typical Activities)
Whether you use daylight or soft white bulbs will also depend on what you typically do in your living room.
Some people like to read, some people watch TV and movies, some people have their hobbies, and some people use their living room as their home office if they don’t have a separate room to dedicate for this purpose.
If you’re someone who uses your living room to relax and wind down after a long work day with some books or a TV show, you’ll want to stick with soft white bulbs. Soft white bulbs will give you that warm and cozy feeling that helps you feel more relaxed and at home.
However, if you use your living room as a home office or do hobbies and crafts that require a lot of focus and accurate color identification, then you may want to consider daylight bulbs.
Daylight bulbs promote productivity and focus. They also give off a more neutral white light in comparison to the yellow-ish hue of soft white bulbs, so you’ll be able to see colors more clearly.
3. Color Scheme
The color scheme of your living room plays a huge role in whether you need a soft white or daylight bulb. Living rooms that have an overwhelmingly warm color scheme already with lots of browns, reds, and oranges may feel too warm with soft white bulbs.
The yellow tint to the soft white bulbs can turn orange in a warm-colored living room. While this may be the desired effect for some people, it can be overwhelming for others.
In living rooms with a warm color scheme, a daylight bulb can help to brighten up the room and add a nice cool balance to the existing warmth.
For living rooms that have a cool color scheme, especially one that’s monochrome on the grey scale with an industrial look, daylight bulbs would be too cold. They’ll feel a lot like fluorescent lighting and give your living room a corporate feel rather than feeling welcoming and warm.
However, soft white bulbs can be a huge help with cool color schemes. Because there aren’t any warm colors to play off of the yellow tint, the yellow isn’t as obvious. Instead, it just feels like you’ve added a little warmth to the room.
4. Time Of Day
Another thing to consider is the time of day you most often spend in your living room.
If you’re gone all day long and only come home to your living room in the evening to wind down, then soft white bulbs are going to be the best fit for you.
They’ll provide a welcoming and friendly atmosphere to help you feel at ease after a long day.
If you spend all day at home and use your living room throughout the day, then daylight bulbs can be helpful. Especially if you use your living room all day long for work or hobbies.
Daylight bulbs can also be too harsh at night when the sun has gone down. It feels too bright in a dark room.
Soft white bulbs, on the other hand, provide just enough light to help you see what you’re doing without feeling overpowering as you prepare your mind and body for sleep.
5. Desired Mood
The bulbs you choose will also depend on the desired mood of the room!
Regardless of any of the other factors listed above, if you want your living room to feel warm and cozy and welcoming, then you need to use soft white bulbs.
If you want your living room to increase your productivity and help you focus better, then you need daylight bulbs. Each color temperature contributes to a totally different ambience in the room.
When choosing a light bulb for your living room, you need to decide what mood you want to create in your living room and buy the bulb that best works to create that mood.
When To Use Daylight Bulbs In A Living Room
There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing the right light bulb for your living room, as we reviewed above.
To make it simple, here are some tips to help you know when to use daylight bulbs in your living room:
- You want a focused, productive environment
- You have limited or no windows
- The color scheme of your living room is all warm colors (red, brown, orange)
- You use your living room as a home office or place to work on hobbies and crafts
When To Use Soft White Bulbs In A Living Room
Just as we did above to show you good instances to use daylight bulbs, below is a list of times when it would be best to use soft white bulbs in your living room.
Consider the below and determine whether one of these applies to your living room:
- You want a warm, cozy environment
- You have a lot of large windows
- The color scheme of your living room is all cool colors
- You use your living room to read, watch TV, and wind down at the end of your day
Daylight Or Soft White Bulbs For Other Rooms
Once you’ve chosen your perfect light bulb for your living room, whether that’s daylight or soft white, it makes sense to determine which bulbs will work best for the rest of your rooms.
Kitchens are great for using daylight bulbs. The added brightness of the daylight bulbs helps you to see exactly what you’re doing as you cook.
Home offices are also perfect for daylight bulbs. As we’ve mentioned, they promote productivity and focus, which are two things you can never have enough of when working.
Bathrooms are best for daylight bulbs because people tend to get ready for the day in their bathrooms. You’ll want a natural colored light to be able to see exactly what your clothes, hair, and makeup will look like throughout the day.
You can use daylight bulbs or soft white bulbs in a finished basement area, depending on what your basement looks like and what you use it for.
Some finished basements are walk-outs, meaning there’s a door you can walk right out of through the basement. These typically have more windows and allow for more natural light, so you can usually use soft white bulbs here.
Basements that are fully in-ground and do not have access to outside other than small windows required by fire safety regulations will usually be darker and can benefit from the extra brightness that daylight bulbs provide.
Bedrooms are ideal for soft white bulbs. When you’re winding down in the evening and starting to settle down for sleep, or even when you’re just waking up and getting used to the light again, soft white bulbs provide a subtle, warm glow.
Dining rooms are also great for soft white bulbs. In a room where families typically gather, or friends come over for a shared meal, the soft white bulbs will add to the cozy and familial atmosphere, promoting togetherness.
Summary: Daylight Vs Soft White Bulbs
If you’re looking for a quick and easy guide to compare daylight and soft white bulbs to figure out which is right for you, then check out the chart below.
It contains the basic facts about each type of bulb and can help you quickly determine which bulb would work best in your living room.
| Daylight Bulbs | Soft White Bulbs |
| 4600-6500K | 2700-3000K |
| Cool, blue glow | Warm, yellow glow |
| Provides balance in a room with a warm color scheme | Provides balance in a room with a cool color scheme |
| Good for focusing and productivity | Good for a welcoming, warm, cozy environment |
| Best used in kitchens, home offices, and dark rooms with small or no windows such as garage or basement | Best used in living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, and other social rooms |
If you still need a visual help to determine which bulb is best, check out the video below from Sean Ferguson.
It’s a quick video – less than a minute – that shows you the difference between 3000K, 4000K, and 6000K for different light bulbs.
The 3000K light is a good representation of soft white bulbs, while the 6000K light is a good representation of daylight bulbs.
You can also check out this video from CNET. It’s a more comprehensive guide to light bulbs that reviews the different rating systems of light bulbs (such as lumens and color temperature).
It gives another great visual example comparing daylight and soft white bulbs so you can get a feel for what each looks like in action.
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