I made an entire Pinterest board of light strip ideas for my living room—up onto the ceiling! a giant half-circle around the TV!—only to throw it all away after finding a box in my closet.
That box was a Lifx Beam kit, which held six light bars and a corner piece to create a geometric shape anywhere on my walls. The Lifx Beam came out back in 2017, and it's been on my list to try as a fun option in the world of smart lights. I can't tell you how long that box has been sitting in my closet (best guess is at least a year), but I regret not taking it out sooner, and am delighted that it was ready and waiting to brighten up my brand-new home.
Consider me converted from light strips to light bars. Now, when decorating my home, I find myself wanting another Lifx Beam instead of dealing with another unruly light strip.
Stack It Up
My TV is now on a massive wall that was begging for something fun to be added to it. I considered some really long LED strips and maybe a coat of paint, but adding the Lifx Beam added a pop of fun and plenty of color without nearly as much work.
Light strips aren't hard to put up, of course. But you have to be intentional with your placement if you're trying to create a design, or even if you're just trying to achieve a nice line or circle with the unruly rope of LEDs. Good light strips are heavier, too, since it's all one long strip of weight; plenty of light strips have popped off my wall or TV after a couple months of use, if not a matter of weeks. You can install some light strips with screws instead of adhesive strips; I've also used a combination of pushpins (for weight support) and adhesive (for creating the strip shape) to achieve my ideal light strip setup.