Blue Ceiling Lights

Blue is the colour buyers most often misjudge on a ceiling fitting, because a blue shade behaves in two completely different ways depending on whether light passes through it or bounces off it. Blue glass colours the light itself. Blue-painted metal keeps the light white and simply reads as a blue object overhead.

Which blue are you actually buying

• Cobalt — deep and saturated, dramatic in glass, heavy in paint.
• Navy — nearly a neutral in a room, reads as dark rather than blue until it catches the light.
• Petrol and teal — green-shifted, the easiest blues to live with beside wood and brass.
• Powder and sky — pale, sits quietly in a child's room or a bathroom.

Glass or painted metal

A blue glass shade tints everything below it. That is lovely over a dining table and a nuisance in a kitchen where you need to judge whether meat is cooked. Painted metal is the safer choice for a working room: the outside is blue, the inside is usually white, and the light landing on the worktop is unchanged. Check the inner finish before buying — a shade painted blue inside as well swallows a surprising share of the output and casts a cold tint downward.

How much light to allow

Coloured glass absorbs. A deep cobalt shade can take 30-40% of the lumens out of a room, so buy up: 2,000-2,400 lm where you would otherwise fit 1,500. With painted metal and a white interior there is no penalty worth calculating.

Where blue works on a ceiling

A blue ceiling light is a single accent and it wants a mostly neutral room to work in. Over an island in a white or pale-grey kitchen, in a bathroom against white tile, or in a child's room where it can be the one bold thing. Two matching blue fittings in a row over a counter read as deliberate; blue scattered through a whole flat reads as an accident.

Frequently asked

Does a blue shade make a room look cold?

Only if the light passes through it. Pair blue glass with a 2,700 K lamp, which pulls the tint back toward warm.

What finishes go with a blue ceiling light?

Brass and warm oak for petrol and teal; chrome and white for cobalt and sky.

Will blue date?

Painted metal can be resprayed. Blue glass cannot, so buy the glass in a tone you already live with elsewhere in the room.

For the same colour hanging lower over a table, see the pendant lights.