We recently replaced every inch of wiring in our old house along with every light fixture, ceiling light, Table Lamps and even Chandeliers weren’t spared. While it may seem drastic to some, most of you will see the logic of it when I relate to you that this house is almost fifty years old and the condition of all the light and wiring were just a little more than suspect.
This was an event in our household, after all six bedrooms, four bathrooms, a two car garage, landscaped are around the pool, the hallways, the landing and the attic. So the first thing was to get online and start looking at designs and we did. I have to admit, while I was dreading the day, when it did finally arrive, it was a lot of fun hunting for home lighting. While we were at it, it became obvious that most of the house was going to get painted and some places were about to receive fresh wallpaper. But that’s for another day.
As far as the lights were concerned, we decided, while we were at it were going to develop a plan to move to zero energy off the grid within five years. We were going to keep this in mind while we planned for our new lighting fixtures. Getting from energy guzzling halogen lamps and inefficient home lighting to zero consumption off the grid was going to take some doing but we were omitted. The first step was to have at least three different types of lights in each room downstairs and at least two different types of lights in each room and hallways upstairs.
The reason we had planned at least three different light fixtures downstairs is because the downstairs area had a higher degree of variability in terms of usage. We did everything from entertain an intimate group of family friends or relatives or had parties for our teenage son that involved lots of pizzas, loud music – which was their idea, and bright lights – which was our idea. This activity level on the higher side diminished to the usual routine of a quite movie night or just my wife and me reading a book by the fireplace. If we only used the pendant lighting in the living hall, that would be a severe waste of energy and if we only had floor lamps or table lamps, entertaining guests would not be ideal.
So for the new Home Lighting we installed two pendant lights close to the ceiling and backed them up with wall sconces on all the walls and between the windows. The pendants and in addition the sconces experienced been individually hooked up to the dimmer for much better management. We then additional two desk lamps and two ground lamps, also with dimmers and we placed LED lighting at different places in living hall where the credenzas would be. These LEDs are great because it emits light with almost zero consumption and no warmth.
These LEDs are turned on whenever we’ve Television evening with he lights of and we only have the crops lit. I hope this concept of what we did with our Home Lighting gets your creative juices going for your on undertaking.