Hey! I’m Emma and I am in the marketing department here at LightsOnline. I am our social media manager, I compose our email newsletters and I write content for this blog. This means that I see, and talk about, lights a lot.
It also means I think about lights a lot, too. If I’m at a shop or restaurant, I will always check out what’s illuminating the space. When I’m watching TV, I’ll comment on whether the lights in a room are adequate or if the ceiling fan is up too high.
I brought this lighting-focused thinking when my husband and I bought our house in 2017. Aside from a pair of Savoy House Elise bath bars in the primary bathroom (a great choice made by the previous owners when they renovated), all of the lights in our house were products of the time in which it was built: the year 2000.
That tacky yellow brass that has been ditched for lovely rich caramelly brass? Yeah, the dining room chandelier and outdoor lights were all that color. The ceiling fan in our guest bedroom was too small and up too high. The same was true in another bedroom that we use as a retro video game playing space. (I am bad at real-life bowling, but very good at Wii Sports Bowling.) Plus, a not-our-style foyer light was hanging in our entryway.
It took a little while – I made a New Year’s resolution that I was going to buy new lights and beautify our home in 2020, so, uh, that didn’t work out as planned (the motto of 2020) – but I finally did it and I could not be happier. Our home looks so much brighter and so much more stylish! My husband was involved with all the decisions and picked the dining room chandelier when I truly could not decide. Installation was done expertly by the manager of our customer service team.
I’ll take you on a tour.
Outdoor Lights
Let’s start outside. We have three lights out front: a wall light over the garage, a hanging light over the front door area and another wall light right next to the front door. They had all seen better days and were too small. (With outdoor lights, you want to go on the bigger side because you’ll see these lights from the street.)
Now, the after.
The lights are all from the Savoy House Jackson collection – this is the hanging light and this is the wall light. I like how they have a classic style and a goes-with-anything black finish. They are also generously-sized and delightfully bright, the hanging light especially!
Here’s another before-and-after view of the light beside the door. We have an octagon-shaped window that creates a fun little frame:
While we’re talking about outdoor lights, let’s also take a brief detour out to the backyard deck, because it has a light too. The previous light was outdated and definitely too small. It was barely big enough to fit the light bulb!
Now let’s go to the after.
Much better! That’s the Savoy House Ellijay. It too is delightfully bright – great for when our cat is looking outside through the sliding glass door and she suddenly gets alarmed by something. Now we can more clearly see if it’s a possum (it’s happened before!) or just a leaf.
Indoor Lights
Okay, now that we’ve covered all of the outdoor lights, let’s go in the front door and check out that foyer light I mentioned.
It’s fine, but nothing to write home about. (And yes, we do have arched doorways, and they are great!)
This is the Trade Winds 3-light drum pendant in black. We love how the drum shade here is slimmer, so it doesn’t feel visually heavy.
Now let’s talk about ceiling fans. I mentioned before that the fans in these two rooms were too small and too close to the ceiling. The fan in the guest room was also very loud.
Before shot featuring our cat, who is beautiful and perfect.
This is the Savoy House First Value ceiling fan in white. It blends into the ceiling, includes the light and moves a lot of air! Also, since it is hung at the correct height, I can more easily reach the pull chains. (I’m 5’1″, so being able to reach things isn’t always a given.)
The other front room had the exact same fan situation.
I chose the exact same fan for this room, too. The TV in there is older and gives off a lot of heat, so a fan that can move a lot of air is a must.
Finally, let’s go to the dining room. Really, it’s more of a dining area because our house has an open-concept main space and so the kitchen, dining room and living room are all connected. This light is by far the most “that meme of Marge Simpson hiding her face in shame” for me. We didn’t even bother replacing burnt-out bulbs because we knew we were going to get a new chandelier eventually, so by the end, it was just barely hanging on with 4 still-working bulbs:
Ah, isn’t that so much better? This is the Trade Winds 5-light chandelier in black. Another reason it was chosen was that its arms did not drop down as far as the other chandelier that was in consideration, which is important for my tall husband because he was concerned about bumping his head.
I chose bulbs with a cooler color temperature here because I felt they would be a truer representation of, say, the colors of the food we eat or the pages of the magazines I like to read. I also chose LED bulbs, so we won’t need to worry about them burning out so quickly!
This picture really doesn’t do justice to just how wonderfully bright Madison is. Perhaps our next project is to add a dimmer. 😁
Those are all of the lights and fans we upgraded! There are 3 other fans, but they look fine and work well for now. There is also a Hollywood dressing room style bath bar in our guest bathroom, but replacing that will also include painting the part of the wall that is currently hidden by the light’s generous backplate. That’s a project for another time – though I am already eyeing the Savoy House Octave for that space.
We often say that swapping out lights is a relatively low-impact project that creates a huge style impact. Now I can say that is true from personal experience!
I also have some advice from personal experience:
- Before you buy, make sure you have everything. I forgot about the ceiling fan downrods (even though I literally wrote the guide on using them) and the little light on the deck, so I had to go back and order those things later. Double-check before you hit Purchase.
- Write down how many bulbs, and what size of bulb, each light will use. Then you can buy the right amount of bulbs for your entire project at one time.
- Also make a note of what fixtures use what bulbs. (For example: dining room chandelier uses 5 candelabra size bulbs, outdoor wall lights use 1 standard size bulb each, etc.) I didn’t do this part, which led to a little bit of indecisiveness in the bulb aisle of the home improvement store.
- Plan for what you’re going to do with the old fixtures and all the boxes. Our installer kindly hauled away the old fixtures while we took care of the packing materials.
To get lights like ours, shop Savoy House and Trade Winds! And if you need any help or advice, our customer service team is here for you – call 1-866-688-3562 or live chat with them at LightsOnline.com.
