← Walls & windows

Interior lighting

In progress Hardware picked · runs untaped

Chill and night come first, party second, and the rule that holds it together: light surfaces, not lines. Strips exist only where fully concealed, washing microcement; wherever a source is visible it is a puck or a fixture. Nothing mounts to a removable panel.

1The plan

BED UP day and WORK: pucks do the lighting CAB DOOR GALLEY 4 main pucks 2 task pucks 4 pucks in the bed underside the office ceiling, bed up strips off by day BED DOWN CHILL and NIGHT: strips only, nothing overhead CAB DOOR GALLEY BED, DOWN no lights overhead cove strips wash the walls optional: glow under the platform edge toe kick, RED at night under-cabinet chill wash puck, main puck, recessed strip, on strip, off optional True proportions, 168 x 84. Counts decided 2026-08-13; positions indicative until taped.

Two states of the same room. Bed UP: four main pucks light the open area, two task pucks light the counter, four pucks in the bed's underside light the office. Bed DOWN: nothing overhead at all; the cove strips around the bed perimeter wash the walls, the toe kick goes red, and an optional strip under the platform edge glows low. Counts decided 2026-08-13, positions indicative until taped. Switch bank at the entry door: MAIN and BED.

2The dual-strip zones

Three zones get the same recipe: the bed ceiling perimeter, which is the only light in the bed area and washes the walls, under the kitchen cabinets, and the galley toe kick. Each runs TWO strips side by side in concealed channels: a dedicated warm white at 2700K CRI 90+ for the chill wash, and an RGB for red night mode and party. One strip cannot do both jobs: the white channel inside any color strip is party-grade, and on a mineral wall the difference shows.

ONE ZONE, ANATOMY same recipe at the bed cove, under-cabinet, toe kick mounting surface, inside the cove WARM 2700K RGB both wash the same surface, one reads warm, one reads color CONTROLLER 4-channel PWM, WiFi Shelly RGBW or QuinLED, an ESP either way R G B W +12V in, fused at the bus RGB takes channels 1-3, the warm white takes channel 4: one controller, one 5-wire cable, two strips, no compromise. WHAT EACH SCENE POWERS CHILL warm strip 20-40% color strip OFF the microcement glows, CRI 90+ NIGHT warm strip OFF RED only, a few % floor-level, keeps night vision PARTY warm low or off RGB, full color two zones is a party, six is a spaceship OFF/WORK both OFF pucks handle work; strips are the mood layer The warm strip is dedicated CRI 90+ because the color strip's own white is party-grade, CRI 70-80, and on a mineral wall the difference shows. STRIPS ARE DUMB. Full blast or nothing without a controller: the controller IS the dimmer, the color mixer, and the scene memory. One per zone.

One controller per zone drives both strips: RGB on channels 1-3, warm white on channel 4. The controller is the dimmer, the color mixer and the scene memory; a strip wired straight to 12V has exactly two states, blinding and off.

The rear bench lip is a ready-made fourth zone whenever it is wanted: same recipe, one more controller.

3Hardware

Warm stripBTF FCOB, 12V, 2700K, CRI 90+, 528LED/m, IP30, 16.4 ft x2
Color stripBTF FCOB RGB, 12V, 10mm, IP30, 32.8 ft roll
ChannelsBlack aluminium, milky continuous silicone diffuser, two per run
Controllers4-channel PWM WiFi, one per zone, x3
Feed18AWG 5-conductor, fused per zone at the 12V bus

IP30 bare strips, never IP65. The silicone-sleeved versions do not fit the channels and cannot shed heat into them; the channel is the protection and the heatsink. COB runs past ~10 ft get fed from both ends.

Why 2700K: microcement is a cool grey mineral. Warm light keeps it reading as stone in sunlight; 4000K and up turns the same walls to parking garage. Task light (the kitchen pucks) sits at 3000-3500K on its own switch leg and is not part of this system.

4Controls

Every controller candidate is an ESP inside: Shelly RGBW is the packaged one, replaceable from any Amazon locker when one dies in Baja and reflashable with ESPHome; QuinLED An-Penta is the open-hardware one, ESPHome-native with a spare channel. The firmware story converges either way: every zone ends up an ESPHome device in the same Home Assistant the systems layer already runs, and scenes become one button. The pick is open and changes nothing else on this page.

5Open