Replacing Vanity Lighting: Placement, Wiring, and What It Costs

Still living with a Hollywood strip light?

If your bathroom was built or last touched in the 80s or 90s — which covers a large share of Boise’s Bench, West Valley, and early Meridian housing stock — the vanity light is probably a chrome or brass bar with a row of bare round bulbs. Builders loved them because one fixture on one box lit the whole vanity cheaply.

The problem is how they light a face: a single source high above the mirror throws light straight down, shadowing the eyes and chin — the opposite of what you want for shaving or makeup. That, plus the dated look and the heat off a row of exposed bulbs, is why the strip light is the most-replaced fixture in bathroom updates.

Over the mirror or beside it: where should the new light go?

Side placement wins for the face. Two sconces flanking the mirror at roughly eye level cross-light your features evenly, which NKBA planning guidance and lighting designers have recommended for decades. An over-mirror bar is the budget-friendly fallback — far better than a strip light if it diffuses the bulbs — but it still lights from one direction.

The catch is wiring. Your existing box is almost certainly centered above the mirror, so an over-mirror fixture is a true swap, while sconces mean two new boxes, wire run through the wall, and drywall repair. That is also why so many bathrooms keep the over-mirror position: the placement decision is really a scope decision.

Vanity lighting is only one of three layers a bathroom needs — task, ambient, and accent. How the layers work together, and what to do when one fixture is doing all three jobs badly, is covered in our guide to bathroom lighting layers.

What’s hiding behind the old fixture?

Strip lights have long, wide backplates. The new fixture almost never covers the same footprint, so expect unpainted wall, mounting holes, or even a rough-cut opening around the box once the old bar comes down. A clean result usually includes drywall patching and paint — small work, but it belongs in the plan.

The box itself is the other unknown. An electrician checks that it is rated for the new fixture’s weight, actually anchored to framing, and fed by wiring in good condition. In older Treasure Valley homes it is not unusual to find an undersized box, cloth-insulated conductors, or no ground — all fixable, and all better found now than after the new light is up.

Do you need an electrician — and a permit?

A true like-for-like swap on an existing box is one of the smaller jobs an electrician does, but it is still line-voltage work in a wet room, and the National Electrical Code published by the NFPA governs fixture ratings and clearances around tubs and showers. Fixtures within reach of water zones have specific damp- or wet-location requirements a pro checks by default.

Once the scope grows — new boxes for sconces, a new switch leg, or circuit changes — permit rules can apply. In Idaho, electrical permits generally run through the state’s Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses rather than city hall; a licensed contractor handles that determination and the paperwork so you do not have to guess.

What does replacing vanity lighting cost?

For a like-for-like swap, national cost guides from HomeAdvisor and Angi put professional light-fixture replacement roughly in the $150–$500 range per fixture including basic labor, with the fixture itself ranging from budget bars to designer sconces on top of that. It is one of the better value-per-dollar updates in a bathroom.

Relocating the light is a different budget. New boxes, in-wall wiring, drywall repair, and paint push the project into the high hundreds or beyond, per the same guides — and if the electrician finds aging wiring, no GFCI protection, or an overloaded circuit, you are into the territory covered in our guide to bathroom electrical upgrade costs.

When a light swap should become part of something bigger

A strip light rarely fails alone. The same era that installed it usually installed the oak-framed builder mirror, the cultured marble top, and the original fan — and if two or three of those are on your list, opening the vanity wall once for all of them beats opening it twice.

That is the honest case for folding lighting into a full bathroom remodel: sconce wiring, mirror placement, outlet updates, and paint all touch the same wall, and sequencing them together is cheaper than a series of standalone visits. If the light is genuinely the only thing wrong, swap it and enjoy it — for broader inspiration first, browse our bathroom lighting ideas.