Flipping on the light switch when you have to make a midnight run to the restroom can be a jarring experience, shocking you awake with bright lights rather than ambient illumination – unless, that is, your floor is full of stars (image above by Ben Yanis).

For the DIY inclined, Instructables contributor Baldr will show you how to add fiber-optic lights to the grout between your tiles (alternatively, Aron of Make will show you ceilings, shown in the last video below), filling the space between glossy floor panels with a nifty and functional form of night lighting. Other approaches include embedded fiber optics directly into floor panels, stringing them along wall corners and intersections or winding them under a transparent surface for more curvaceous effects (shown above).

Essentially, you have to bundle the fibers, place those bundles under the tiles, trim the fibers then terminate them at various random intervals to create the desired effect. Of course, you don’t have to limit the application to bathroom floors – any tiled surface could be a candidate, or you could do something similar on outdoor decks or in garages as well (image above by Kainet).

For a project like this, material and tool requirements are pretty straightforward, including standard supplies for fibre optic installation (or a premade kit) and of course whatever you need for the related elements (for a floor: whatever you would need to retile that floor). For the geeky home improvement type, fibre optics can produce sleek designs for everything from floors to yards and ceilings, adding a little distributed light wherever you have need.