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Tag: lighting

1000 Bulbs to Welcome Home

Welcome everyone this winter with a walkway that lights the path. I received a rope light from 1000 Bulbs in exchange for my honest thoughts. All opinions are my own.

We woke up this morning to an ice storm. There was fair warning the last few days that it was coming, but after some time here in Indiana, I usually don’t believe the weathermen until it actually comes. Most storms seem to bypass us, but the rare few. I love a good storm, as long as we don’t have to go out in it.

Today I was just grateful I had gotten our lights out. We may still leaves all over the backyard, but our walkway is ready to welcome guests all winter long with the new rope lighting I got from 1000 Bulbs. We haven’t done a lot with lighting our outdoor space over the years. It’s been on my to-do list since we moved in, but until now just hasn’t gotten done. And it got done just in time too!

When I first got the lights I wasn’t sure where we would put them. I tried a few different idea, but after talking it over with Mark, we decided we really wanted to light the walkway. Our neighborhood is pretty dark without street lights, and with a long walk from the drive to the door, we wanted any guests to feel more welcome by lighting their way.

So I laid out the lights and then had to get creative on how to attach them to the ground. 1000 Bulbs sends zip ties and house hooks, but nothing to work on the ground. Our tent broke this summer, but it is still sitting in the garage, so I pulled out the stakes. These I used to hold down the lights. So far they’re working like a charm.

Once I added the snowmen to the end of the walkway, I knew for sure the rope lights were the perfect solution for our outdoor lighting conundrum. They really help welcome us home after a long day out. They will also ease my mind as our friends and family come and go over the holidays – and beyond – knowing they aren’t walking through the dark to get to their cars.

Aren’t my snowmen just adorable? See how to make the wooden snowmen.

Don’t forget to head to 1000 Bulbs to get lights that can welcome you home! Right now you can save 10% off your order with code SAVELED2018. Check out their Christmas lights, and other home lighting solutions.

November 15, 2018
Lighting A Sitting Area with Brightech

Lighting is crucial to the atmosphere of any home. Create a welcoming sitting area with gorgeous lamps from Brightech. I received a lamp from Brightech in exchange for my honest thoughts.

You may also enjoy: Light Up Your Look and Your Home

One of the first things I noticed when moving into our current home was the lack of overhead lighting. The only rooms with wired lighting were those rooms you can’t feasibly put a lamp in. Every other room was wired so that lamps could be turned on and off with a light switch – we just needed some lamps.

I’ve spent the last 3 years trying to find the perfect lamps for the different rooms, but have finally found what I wanted for a little sitting area from Brightech. The Trilage Floor Lamp in bronze complimented our red couch and was a perfect accent to the red chairs I recently picked up.

Aren’t those chairs pretty? I snatched them up at a local store for overstock and slightly damaged items for a whopping $10. They needed a little TLC on the seats. That in itself was a headache, but I’m loving the results, and so are the kids.

They use to come home and crowd each other on the couch, now they fight over these chairs. The best part about this, is that the chairs do not face the TV, so they are just hanging out, talking, or reading books over there.

Speaking of books, you know how much I love to read! I pulled this copper basket out from it’s hiding spot under my sink and gave it a featured spot in this sitting area. A few of our favorite soft blankets, and a couple of books I’ve been meaning to get to are stacked inside making.

I’m just loving all the earthy tones going on in this corner!

The Trilage lamp has proved to be exactly what I wanted. See, besides all the reading I do, I also cross stitch. Our old lamps were absolutely atrocious for this activity. When I went looking for lamps I specifically wanted something that hung down, directing light onto my work, but that could also light up the whole room.

The three hanging lights on the Trilage proved perfect. The directed light from the bottoms of the shades eases my eye strain, but the soft shades allow for the light to reach across the whole room. For days when no one else is home, I can turn off 2 of the lights, and just use one for my sewing.

Brightech has some gorgeous lamps on their site, that choosing one was actually quite difficult at first. I wasn’t sure where I wanted it exactly, just what I wanted it to do. You can browse their floor lamps, table lamps, string lamps, and even magnifying lamps! I admit, the magnifying lamps were tempting as my eyes are getting older.

The initial lamp I received had been manufactured wrong, so I reached out to the company to double check if what was going on was correct, and if so offered some suggestions on how to fix it before selling more like it. The company was great and got a new lamp – same style – out to me asap. This time the problem area was resolved, and we could begin using the lamp without fear it would fall on one of the kids. I highly recommend working with them for the perfect lighting in your home.

September 24, 2018
Light Up Your Look and Your Home

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As I continue to work on Finding my Fashion, I’ve realized it’s similar to decorating the home. So why not match my fashion to my home’s fashion? Or vice versa – match your home’s fashion to your fashion.

I’ve been dreaming of chandeliers in our home, because they are just so gorgeous. They don’t just add light, but they add a whole style to your room. I’ve found a few favorites around Wayfair and Amazon that match some of my favorite jewelry from Cents of Style. Have you ever tried matching your fashion style to your home’s decor?

If you have a room that’s pretty dark, that you want to really light up, I would go for a classic chandelier. One that will really grab the light and spread it through the room. Something like this crystal chandelier.

To match my style, I’d pair this with Cents of Style’s Tina Necklace set. The large clear jewels will help brighten an old outfit. Cents of Style is often adding and changing their jewelry, so browse around and see what necklace will fit in with your home’s lighting.

What do you do if you have a really bright room though, and you want to tone it down a bit? I love the angles on this light from Amazon. It fits perfectly with a lot of the jewelry I like to wear and really helps give light, but keep it toned down a bit too.

A perfect jewelry accent for this light would be the vintage Napier Triangles Necklace. I could easily see myself wearing this Necklace out on the town with Mark. Simple but with flair that pulls attention right to it’s smooth angles.

When you match your home’s lighting to your favorite piece of jewelry, it adds a pleasing bit to the eye when you have no reason to get all dressed up.

What jewelry would you pair with your home’s lighting? Or would you change up your lighting to match your jewelry?

November 13, 2014
DIY Clarinet Lamp
Music lovers will love this tutorial for a DIY Clarinet Lamp. Make a matching pair to really stick out in your music room. This post contains affiliate links and I will receive compensation if you click on and make a purchase.

Last summer Mark took an old Clarinet we had and mounted it on some particle board, then threaded a lamp cord through it. He left it as is, and as much as I loved the idea, I kept telling myself I would update the lamp to look a bit nicer.

Finally this month, I made the time. Finding the right lampshade was half the battle, but once that was found, I knew that not only would this be a Clarinet Lamp…it would also be a stage for some little Musicians we’ve had laying around the house.

We went through a number of lampshades before finding the right one. I believe this one above was #2. It was just a little too small for the overall feel though. I couldn’t wait for the right lampshade before I started updating it, so out came some paint, and I gave that base a new look.

I was worried about the particle board showing through, and taking in too much paint, so I gave it 3 coats before calling it good. I’m still debating putting a chalkboard layer over it – what do you think??

I went back to our local thrift store to see if I could find a better shade, and this time, they had it! A nice square, to offset all the circles going on, and that’s when it hit, that this was going to be a stage.

Some stencils quickly made using Picmonkey, a razor, and some white paint, made a simple, anyone can do it, musical shade. I used scrapbook glue dots to hold the stencil on the shade.

There are obviously some extra bumps of paint, but I think it just adds a nice rough look to the shade. Plus, from far away, you can’t even tell.

Time for the final touch, the little Musicians – aren’t these just awesome?!

DIY Clarinet Lamp

What you’ll need:
- Old Clarinet
- Screws
- Circular particle board base
- black paint
- lampshade
- light bulbs – I prefer GE LED Bulbs
- lamp kit
Drill a hole through the center of the base. Carve out a section for the lamp cord to lay safely under the base. Paint your base black…or any color you prefer. Thread your lamp wire through the clarinet, and the base. Attach the clarinet to the base using 2-3 screws. Add a light bulb, and shade. Plug in, and enjoy some musical ambiance.
May 27, 2014
Saving Money with LED Power #LEDSavings #shop

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for #CollectiveBias and its advertiser. #LEDSavings

Ever since my brother told me he’s moving his family to Belgium this summer, I’ve been determined to make a trip back East to see them before they go. I’ve been racking my brain for ways to cut our monthly costs back. I thought I had done everything I could, without starving my family (I promise we eat a nice balanced diet) when I came across LED power.

LED lighting has been around for awhile, but they aren’t cheap upfront, and it’s not something I’ve seen or noticed in a lot of homes. Since I was unfamiliar with it, I wasn’t so sure the initial cost would really save us money. I’m one who won’t buy a store membership just to get a little savings – so buying a single LED powered bulb for what I would normally get 2 or more bulbs for wasn’t too convincing at first.

That would be like judging a book by it’s cover though, so I did some more research into what kind of savings I would get by purchasing the LED light bulb. Check out the types of savings I found – not just for me, but the environment as well!

Infographic sources – GE Energy Consumption calculator

MSN Real Estate

15X Longer than incandescent Bulbs!!! Let’s look at that one a little bit closer – I buy incandescent bulbs for around $3-$5/bulb. One GE LED Energy Smart is on average $10/bulb but can get up to $15 for a regular indoor bulb. To buy one LED I’m spending 3X the money up front. However, if I buy the incandescent, it’s going to burn out a lot sooner than the LED – 15x sooner actually. Let’s do a quick life cycle cost analysis shall we?

$5×15 = $75

or

$15×1 = $15

You all see what I did there right? Over the lifetime of 1 LED bulb I’m saving $60 in bulb replacement costs. That would equal to filling up with gas once. Alright, I’m feeling a little more sold on my upfront costs so I bought a couple at my Walmart to try out.

Now what’s this about the trees? You can head over to GE’s website and input the number and style of bulb you are replacing in your home and it does a couple calculations for you. I’m a tree lover, and that number just astounded me! I decided to start with just replacing the 4 bulbs I bought, and see what kind of savings I was going to get.

With just 4 bulbs replaced I’m lowering our energy bill by $20/year, and reducing the co2 as if I planted over 3 million acres of trees! The savings would cover almost 1 full bill in the summer, leaving me a little extra for our trip back east.Later I input enough bulbs to replace all the lights in my home which is where the 15 million acres of trees comes from on the infograph above, but my yearly savings also jumped up to just over $80. That’s a good winter’s energy bill completely eliminated, and in two years will have more than covered the initial cost of all the bulbs.

Finally, did you see the savings cost on a typical household energy bill? Pretty impressive. I’d love to lower my yearly costs to only $26! Put that other $238 in my pocket. What I love about this, besides just the monetary savings, is that the LED lights are designed to improve lighting performance, while also eliminating the wasted heat.Ever turn off a light and try to change the bulb? CFL’s get hot quick! While playing around with the LED and CFL’s, I found I could leave the LED on longer, and remove it immediately after turning off the light, while the CFL after just a few seconds got way too hot to touch. Disclaimer: please please always do a quick touch to any lightbulb before grabbing hold so you don’t burn yourself. The bottoms of the LED lights do get hot.

Grab this tutorial for a Clarinet Lamp

So remember how I said I wanted to head back east this summer, but I didn’t know what else I could cut from our budget? Look what the GE LED Energy Smart lightbulbs just saved me –

$60 in bulb replacement costs

$80 from my energy bill (but can be up to $238 for the average household)

That gives me an extra $140 to spend on our vacation – we could actually get a nice hotel for that!

What would you do with the savings from a GE LED Energy Smart bulb?

For more Savings info, and to keep up with GE Lighting Follow them on

Facebook * Twitter * Instagram

Sarah Mock from How I Pinch a Penny put together this amazing video on the GE LED lights that is just FAB! Watch the video to see how she is saving

April 14, 2014
Lighting the Stairway

While trying to maximize our home’s appeal to potential buyers while still saving money, we decided to change up the lighting in our stairway.

The biggest problem I found with the original lighting, was that it had no cover, and at one point while going down the stairs you’d be staring straight into it. Not the most comfortable thing. Mark believes at one point there was a large mirror in front of it that would light up. I can see it, but there was no mirror now.

So we decided it needed to be changed. We didn’t want to spend money though, especially since we had the perfect light in the front room.

See that hanging light. It really didn’t fit in the front room, but that’s where it was when we bought the house, and it is the only light in the front room. It plugged into the wall with the light switch wired to it as well. The problem here was it only lit the one side of the room, and the shelf was in the way of the chain.

Mark’s brilliant mind saw this as the perfect stairway light. With the nice long chain on it, Mark only had to do a small bit of electrical and wiring work to wire it directly into the wall, in the same place the old stair light was attached, but now the light hung from the ceiling instead of directly in our eyes.

And in case you’d like to comment on it, yes the walls are carpeted in the staircase. Gosh I love the 70’s! Do you realize how many fingerprints I don’t have to clean in this area because of the carpet?

August 1, 2013
Choosing the Right Lighting

The end is near! We finally closed on our house just before Christmas. It has made moving a bit of a nightmare, but the house is ours, and it is time to turn it into a home.

Today I want to talk a little about lighting. Finding the right lights, creating the right mood with lights, and not over lighting or under lighting any area of your home. See I have a problem. Our new Front Room is very much under lighted. I’ve been browsing some of the Kartell lighting over at LBC Modern.

Under Lighting

Here is a snapshot of our front room (ignore Christmas…)

It’s a fairly small room, and the only lighting is that old antique light hanging from the corner – which by the way, doesn’t work. So now our only light in this room is the big picture window facing north. I mention that because the north side of the home gets the cold, and not as much sun. Leaving our lighting pretty dim here.
I want this room to be welcoming, which means it needs the right lights. I’m thinking a bourgie table lamp next to a small couch would look pretty nice.

Above the shelf I would like to add some recessed can lighting as well, to spotlight any decorating I do or pictures we may hang there.

These small lighting additions would bring this room up to the perfect lighting atmosphere to be welcoming, but not overly lit or gaudy.

Over Lighting

Our new kitchen has had the opposite effect with over lighting. The kitchen is a small little space in this home (yes another remodel is on the horizon!). My current issue, however, is the overabundance of lights, and the separate switch for each one. I think I counted 3 or 4 different switches in the kitchen, and each one only turned on one single light. It’s enough to spin me in circles trying to get the right light on. There is a dining area light, an above the sink light, and a laundry light. With the way it is set up right now, the laundry light is needed. It could easily be changed, though, to have one longer light in the kitchen that would give light into the laundry side of the room and extend to the dining area. This would especially work as the dining side could use the light from the south facing window it sits next to. Again, south side of the house, you’ll be getting more sun, and therefore, don’t need as much lighting.

Use Lights to Set the Mood

Lighting truly affects our moods. The more light, especially natural light from the sun, the happier we are. I strive for joy and happiness in our home, something I think we all probably do. So I love tossing open the curtains and blinds and letting in the sun. There are some areas of a home though, that don’t get the natural lighting. Areas such as a basement. They tend to be dark. By finding the right lights, you can create a joyful area in the basement, despite its lack of sun. I would go with bright lights and soft shades for a table lamp. If the ceilings are tall enough in your basement, hanging overhead lights can give off more light than those closer to the ceiling.

If you’re creating a space for kids, though, you may want to try different colored lights. They can spark creativity and a joyful mood for your children. I personally love these Pablo Tube Lights I found. Not only would my kids love the colors, but they are also dimmable lights, so I can adjust them to just the right amount of light we need.

Well, I’m off to pack some more boxes, and daydream of the future remodels in our new home. I can’t wait to show you pictures of what we do!

*This sponsored post was made possible by SheHeard. I have been compensated for my time and work on this campaign, however, all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

December 27, 2012
My dream Entryway

When we first looked at this house, I fell in love with the entryway. It was the entryway from my dreams. Huge Ceilings, plenty of space to decorate, and almost romantic. If we were buying instead of just renting, I had big plans for this space!

The out-dated red carpet would be the first to go. I was all set to rip that up, and polish down the original hard wood underneath. The paneling I still have mixed feelings on, but since we’re not staying here, I guess it doesn’t matter too much. The side wall, I really wanted to get a console table. Something like this one from One Kings Lane

I’ve also got my umbrella bucket just behind the door for easy access, but out of sight of guests. Right now it has the kids umbrellas, but I’d love to add a more stylish umbrella for me.

Lighting is also very important in the entryway. Our current entryway relies on light from door window and the adjoining rooms. If I were to add lighting to this rental it would be something like this cascade chandelier

OK, it might be a tad out of budget…and probably always will be, but it would really be gorgeous in this entryway!

I’ve been browsing One Kings Lane (if you couldn’t tell), because they were having a huge entryway sale this week (ending tomorrow). I’ve been dreaming about all the fun stuff I could have done to this entryway, had we decided to buy the house.

*This post contains affiliate links. If you sign up to One Kings Lane using one of these links, you will receive a $15 credit, and be helping Home Maid Simple continue to bring you wonderful home decor posts!

October 10, 2012