DIY SHELF LIGHTING

​I have an affinity for books, and for the past decade I've sadly relegated them to bins and boxes. I recently found an essay I wrote in high school on my love of reading and in it I said that I wanted the "finest thing in my house to be my library." I think high school me would be pretty proud of these book cases. My favorite feature is the lighting. It gives such a nice glow at night, and elevates the whole piece. I was able to find very affordable lighting that was easy to use. If you are illuminating a bookcase or adding under cabinet lighting in a kitchen, you'll want to read on. Here is all the lighting info!

This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience. If you purchase through a link, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. These links help to offset the cost of running this blog. I only post what I love.

We need more light in our living room, since we only have lamps and no overhead lights. I knew I wanted to add lighting to the book cases. Originally I thought just some sconces on the outside, but after researching, I decided to illuminate each shelf.
 
I found all of my lighting from one company on Amazon and took a chance. ​

The company that these lights are from is called Aiboo. I had never purchased from them before, but they had a ton of options for lighting. After looking at several options and measuring my shelves I decided that bar lights would be best for the front shelves and puck lights for the corners.
​

Aiboo had options for both hardwired and plugin lights, since there was an outlet behind my shelving I was able to go with plug-in. This made it really easy. The kit I picked came with 4 bar lights and all the connectors as well as a dimmer. I was really impressed with what I got for the money. What I paid for the kit is what I would have paid for just one (maybe two) lights at the big box store. The fact that it came with two different length connectors meant I could really customize to what I needed.
​

To hang the lights, I drilled a small hole behind the trim work in each shelf and ran the lighting up through it. You can choose to get a kit that all comes of one connector or that has each light connected to the next light (that's what I went with). The kit comes with both screws or 2 sided tape to attach the bar, I used the tape and they've held up well but it would be easy enough to screw them in if you were concerned.
​

I then purchased a "Y-Connector" to connect the two kits together so that they would be on one switch.
​

Since I had such a good experience with the bar lights, I went ahead and purchased puck lights from the same company. Again they came with all the connectors necessary. I think I ended up liking the puck lights better because they were very slim and the cords were white, so they blended in really well with the shelving. I may try to spray paint the wires of the bar lights white. You can't see them from most angles, but when I'm sitting in my recliner at an angle, I do. Which I realize is silly, so for now the black will stay, but I just wanted you to be aware that the cords are black on the bar light packs.
​

I was able to link the puck lights and the bar lights through a connector that came with the kit, however the dimmer does not extend to the pucklights when hooked up like this. I could just have the pucklights on a separate dimmer, but I like the ease of flipping one switch.
​

Would I purchase these lights again? Yes, I absolutely would. I was so impressed with the quality from a company I had never heard of. They were affordable (more affordable than anything I found in stores) and came with everything needed