Homeowners hang beautiful light fixtures from their ceilings and put lamps in as many dark corners of a room as they can, but how often do you visit someone’s home and see their staircase lit up with built-in lighting? Unless you’re visiting a fancy commercial building or walking down some very nicely landscaped outdoor steps, built-in staircase lighting isn’t quite as common in the average home. It may not work in everyone’s home, but it definitely helps make a staircase look more interesting and safe in the dark! Here are some great examples to check out for yourself.

Tiny Bursts of Brilliance Along the Side

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to add lighting to your staircase without a total overhaul is by using small lights along walls on the sides. These lights featured on Hative actually look like tiny twinkling stars.

Check out these neat-looking lights from Super Modular. A great alternative if you want just a very subtle lighting solution.

Here’s a staircase in a cabin featured on Small House Bills that has small lights along the side wall for every other step.

In some cases, lights for every other step may be a bit much. This beautiful wood staircase from Vlassak Verhulst makes use of just three very tiny and subtle lights on each side of the wall for just enough lighting.

Strips of Light for Each and Every Step

Another clever way to light up your stairs is by attaching light strips along each step. It’s easy to do if the flat surfaces of your steps juts out a bit past the vertical parts — like these basement stairs featured on Hative.

KLUS is one manufacturer that offers this type of lighting solution, for both indoor and outdoor stairs.

For staircases that don’t have that extra flat section that extends out each step, a different place to consider putting them is at the very base of each step that connects to the next. Take a look at the neat lighting effect this staircase from Homedit creates between each step and even on the side walls.

These chunkier stairs featured on Arch Daily make it easier to create more of a soft glow than a bright impression with lighting strips.

For anyone lucky enough to have stairs that make use of glass between each step to make it look like they’re hanging or floating, like this staircase featured on Design Milk, the look can be highlighted or exaggerated by adding lighting strips.

FreshHome featured these amazing staircases with Luxo Light Insertions, which wrap the lighting around the entire midsection of each step. The result is enough to take your breath away.

The hanging/floating staircase look certainly can be pleasing to the eye, and there’s at least one more way you can use those lighting strips to enhance it. This wood staircase featured on Klikk lines all the sides of the staircase that face the wall to really highlight the fact that they’re not secured to the wall — making them look like they’re floating in mid-air.

Illumination All the Way Up the Railing

Last but not least, there’s always the railing to consider too. It’s another easy way to light up your existing staircase. Simply attach a very long LED light strip beneath your railing, like this stunning example of a black and white staircase featured on Design Boom.

Of course, keep in mind it’s pretty much required that your railing goes straight up and down without curling around any walls for this to work. Here’s another fine example featured on Habitos.

A different take on the lit-up railing is to bring the light strip to the slanted baseboard of the stairs that runs up it. Of course, not all staircases have this, but it works beautifully in the example below from Arch Daily — especially with that lovely brick wall beside it!

What’s your favorite way to light up a staircase? For anyone who has small children or simply lives in a house that’s darker than average, this could be a beautiful and worthwhile solution for minimizing trips and falls.