It turns out Little M is afraid of the dark. She’ll frequently wake up during the night and come running through to Little J and I for a hug. Her room looks out onto our back garden, and one of the neighbouring homes has a dog which barks into the night, waking her up and scaring her. So, to give her a little comfort (and some sleep for me!), I did a bit of Daddy DIY.

I used some of this LED tape I had left over from another project. Because I’m using LEDs, they don’t overheat, they don’t have a high voltage (child-friendly) and they are very cheap to run. This isn’t particularly difficult, and he’s pretty cheap too. You don’t actually need any tools beyond a small Phillips screwdriver and maybe a pair of scissors.

First, decide where you want to run your tape and what direction it should be pointing. Little M’s bed has a metal frame, so I decided to run it along the inside of the frame, under the bed on either side, pointing inwards. I could have pointed it downwards to the floor, but I think this might have made it brighter. It’s supposed to be a night-light though, so didn’t want it too bright.

Once you’ve decided where you want to put the tape and how long you want it to be, cut it with a pair of scissors if you need. There are markings on the tape for where you should cut. Don’t cut anywhere else or you might ruin that section of lights. Then, stick the tape to your chosen area(s) of the bed. The tape has a nice sticky backing, so just peel off the backing and stick it to the bed. Once you’re done, put the black and red wires into the block connector. Red goes to (+) and black goes to (-). Tighten up the screws on the block connector with your screwdriver. Once that’s done, plug your power supply into the block connector and you should have light!

A little side note here: because I had already used some of this tape for something else, one of the sections I cut off didn’t have any wires, so I had to solder some new wire one. It’s a 2 minute job, but if you’ve never soldered before, it might feel daunting. You can pick up a soldering iron, solder and wire from Maplin pretty cheaply. Make sure to read up on soldering and take all the relevant safety precautions. I can’t take responsibility for you setting fire to the carpet.

Once you’ve tested it’s all working, make the bed back up and show your work off proudly to anyone and everyone!

Mine looks like this:

Have you done anything creative in your little one’s bedroom/playroom! Leave a note in the comments below!

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