The Thrifty Decorating Blog

I've been complaining about the lighting in my laundry room for months. "There's just not enough light down there," I'd tell dh. "Yup. I'll take care of it," he'd say. In the meantime, I struggled to match socks in the dimly lit basement laundry room, more-or-less abandoning hope that I'd ever have to stop squinting while trying to read the care labels on my family's clothing.

Then...it happened. I walked down to my laundry room this weekend, innocently stepped inside, and BAM!!!!!--my eyes were assaulted by the brightest fluorescent lighting I'd ever seen. Dh took my "I'd like it brighter in there" request a bit too far, and now when I'm doing laundry, I feel like I'm almost getting a sunburn under the intensity of his solution to my lighting dilemma.

I have been thinking about lighting for weeks, mainly because I keep stumbling across the topic. I was searching for decorating articles last week, and I found several on lighting, including this one about candles: Light Up Your Home, on Realtytimes.com. Then I got a nice e-mail about my site from a guy who has a blog dedicated to lighting--A Light Fantastic. Then on Friday night, dh and I and some friends met at a trendy little restaurant downtown for tapas and drinks. It was our first visit, and when we walked it, I was pleasantly surprised by their lighting choices. In addition to a few soft overhead fixtures, much of the restaurant was lit by religious candles (also called "veladores", like these) lined along the edge of the floor throughout the entire place. It was a beautiful, unexpected sight. This type of thing just keeps happening, and I am beginning to think that the universe is trying to get me to pay attention to lighting.

In my home, I like to have task lighting and small lamps in every room. While I admit that every kitchen should have overhead lighting that's bright for whenever you need it (like for heavy-duty veggie chopping), I rarely use overhead lighting in any other room. And one of the biggest hits at my last party was an idea I must attribute to my dh: we filled all three of our fireplaces with tons of pillar candles of all sizes and lit them. It was an alternative to a fire, and it added coziness and ambiance, as well as flickering backdrop of light.

So as the universe has requested, I am paying more and more attention to lighting. And I am learning what a beautiful thing the perfect--or unexpected--lighting choice can be.