Accent Lighting: Wall Grazing vs. Wall Washing

Wall grazing and wall washing are accent lighting techniques that highlight an often overlooked element—the walls. When you’ve spent extra time, effort, and money on your home or business’ walls, you want to show them off!

Wall grazing and wall washing are both great ways to enhance the look and feel of your home or business, but they yield different results. You should be careful when choosing which technique to use and base your choice on your specific situation and ideal outcome. Read on for an explanation of these two techniques and how to use them to invoke the atmosphere you want in all your indoor and outdoor spaces.

What is Wall Grazing?

Wall grazing is an accent lighting technique that involves casting a light on a wall at a very narrow-angle, creating alternating areas of light and shadow, subtly highlighting the wall. The light is typically mounted on either the floor or ceiling. The angle of the light can be adjusted to create the desired effect.

Best Uses for Wall Grazing

Wall grazing is perfect for accenting a textured wall, both indoors and outdoors. It’s a popular technique to highlight walls made of bricks, stone, and other natural elements. Restaurants and other businesses often use wall grazing to create a more upscale atmosphere and lead the customers’ line of sight to a specific area or feature.

Wall grazing can also be used on a smaller scale, such as to highlight a kitchen backsplash.

What is Wall Washing?

Wall washing is an accent lighting technique that eliminates all shadows and brightly lights up an area of the wall. The light is mounted on the ceiling a few feet away from the wall, casting a wide-angle. Depending on how far from the wall you place the light, you can actually illuminate the entire wall from ceiling to floor.

Best Uses for Wall Washing

Wall washing is best used when you want to feature the contents of the wall or something just in front of it. Art galleries often use wall washing to feature artists’ works without having to brightly light the entire room. It can be used inside a home to highlight art, collectibles, or plant features.

On a larger scale, wall washing can light up large outdoor commercial signs, like those on the side of a building.

Accent Lighting Design and Installation in Tampa Bay

If you’d like to try wall grazing or wall washing in your Tampa Bay home or business, call the lighting design and installation experts at Decorating Elves. We can help you make your vision a reality with custom residential and commercial lighting design and outdoor audio solutions to highlight everything that makes your property special. Call (727) 474-2628 or contact us online to schedule an estimate on your lighting project today!