Learn the best ways to use light in your home. Our blog includes residential lighting tips for both inside and outside as well as design inspiration for your house.
When someone says garage lighting, you probably think of something along the lines of this:
Flickering fluorescents buzzing overhead, or perhaps just a lonely solitary bulb.
Now, things are a bit different. Modern garages aren’t just for cars and dusty forgotten storage boxes anymore, but have become an extension of the home. And they’re way beyond cheap, ineffective and dated light fixtures.
Here are 11 examples of garages that broke away from the mold to show how contemporary lighting can take a garage from spiritless to spectacular.
I’m a huge fan of mixing modern and vintage design elements and this garage does it wonderfully. The overhead barn lights intermingle with low-profile recessed lights while wall washers and spotlights display the custom-made mural of vintage formula race cars. Read More
If an entire home lighting renovation isn’t feasible right now, a simple and affordable way to update your style is by getting creative with what you already have and combining it with what others have left behind.
Thrift Shops
There is nothing quite as rewarding to me as a good ol’ thrift shop gem. When my family moved into a new home last year, the builder-grade light fixtures didn’t do much for the decor, but upgrading them just wasn’t in the budget. I was faced with the challenge of incorporating my style into the house without spending a fortune — a perfect excuse to pay a visit to my favorite local resale shops. Check out what I came home with…
I spray painted the wooden base on this old $1.00 lamp navy blue and topped it with a lime green chevron shade – perfect for a kid’s playroom. Total cost ~$10I always had big plans to DIY a Ball Jar lamp but when I came across one for $5 at the consignment shop, I jumped on it.
QUICK TIP:Don’t forget about Ebay, consignment stores, flea markets, Craigslist, Freecycle, local yard sales, or non-profit donation centers like Goodwill, The Salvation Army, or Habitat for Humanity ReStores.
Work with What You’ve Got
I always loved the height and elegant shape of this lamp. When the shade was damaged in our move, it was a perfect opportunity for me to get creative. A new lamp shade ($9.95 on consignment), a decorative finial (taken from another old lamp), and some leftover twine gave this light new life!
A $10 lamp shade, decorative finial and some twine gave this old lamp new life.
Maybe you already have a gorgeous lamp or family heirloom that you just can’t part with but haven’t found a way to make it work in your home. Consider updating the base with a new lamp shade, get out the spray paint, or switch out a dated bulb with the warm light from a trendy vintage-style antique light bulb. Even small changes can have a dramatic effect and completely change the look of the light.
Across the country this week students strapped on their backpacks and headed out for an exciting new year of school. But in the midst of that back-to-school glee, one word still strikes fear in both parents and students … Homework. What if there was a way to make the homework battle less stressful, dare I say enjoyable? Today I’m sharing five dread-busting homework stations with creative lighting that may actually make your student want to do homework.
A Gray Area
Loads of natural light, comfy space-age chairs and bright colors are everywhere in this contemporary-cottage homework room. The rustic exposed fixture is the perfect place for a glare-free vintage light bulb.
For the sophisticated student, this distraction-free homework station offers minimal colors, clean lines, ample storage and three bright puck lights that define each individual space.
Bold and bright colors spark creativity in this enormous luxury homework suite designed to look like you’re floating inside of a hot air balloon. Read More
This is the fourth post in our Weekend Warrior blog post series, part of our quest to bring customers unique products and creative ideas for DIY lighting projects around the house. We previously covered how to install security lighting, a custom pantry lighting solution, and creating a kid’s book nook with a wall mounted reading light.
Since moving into my home in 2009 I have completed a number of lighting projects. In fact, I started a New Home Project blog post series documenting them. I am happy to report that a couple of those posts helped others with their own under cabinet and over cabinet lighting projects.
It has been a couple of years, but recently I embarked on two new projects with one overriding theme — Saving money by adding and/or replacing existing lights with LED. The first project that I’d like to share is adding LED recessed lighting to our bonus room to add more general illumination to this room, and the second one switched out our halogen recessed lights to LED. In both projects I installed 6-inch LED retrofits.
Project One – The Weekend Project
My bonus room’s general illumination came only from the lighting on our ceiling fan. For the size of our bonus room this was woefully inadequate. So, jump forward 6 years and we are finally getting around to painting this room and making it more than a “holding area” for random stuff. We decided it was a good time to increase the light level in this room with four LED recessed lights in the 4 corners of the room.
Before we installed recessed lighting in our bonus room, our ceiling fan was the only light in the room.
When our house was built in 2009 I used PAR30 halogen light bulbs in our recessed lighting. At the time LED recessed lighting was still a little pricey and there were not many options. Now times have changed. LED recessed lighting, specifically LED retrofits, have come down in price and there a number of options available. Read More
When Pegasus Lighting’s President Chris Johnson heard that his neighbor Greg had installed such a unique solution to his dark pantry problem, he knew it was perfect for our Weekend Warrior blog post series. The Weekend Warrior series is part of our quest to bring our customers unique products and offer creative ideas for DIY lighting projects around the house.
Written by guest blogger Greg Prospero
For years my family has struggled to deal with an unlit kitchen pantry. It was dark and deep leaving its contents shrouded in spooky mystery. You might reach in for a box of Oreo cookies and come out with a bag of dried organic snap peas. To avoid these frustrating mix-ups we resorted to using our iPhone flashlights or a small battery powered LED puck light – neither of which delivered satisfactory illumination of the pantry contents.
This DIY will explain how you can bathe your entire pantry in bright and uniform LED light whenever you open the door. The build is simple and low cost. There are only a few parts and the lighting is powered by 8 AA batteries that should power your lights for more than 15 hours.
You want every penny you spend to add value to your home, so when you’re considering selling how do you decide which upgrades are worth it? According to the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), 9 out of 10 people who are looking for a new home are more likely to choose an energy-efficient home. And, they are often willing to pay a little more for it.
Source: NAHB.org, What Home Buyers Really Want
The graphic above represents the top 10 features that are important to home buyers, differentiated by the percentage of people that have to have it (orange), and those that would really like to have it (blue). This study begs the question – How many potential home buyers are marking your house off their list because it lacks some of these features?
It’s clear that energy efficiency is a highly sought after feature. When you’re looking for ways to reduce power use in your home, lighting is a great place to start. Here are some easy and cost-effective ways that you can make your home lighting more energy-efficient, and therefore more attractive to potential buyers.
Light emitting diodes (LEDs) have revolutionized energy efficiency in the lighting industry. Aside from unscrewing a light bulb, upgrading your incandescent recessed light fixtures with LED retrofits is one of the easiest ways to update your lighting system. If you can change a light bulb, you can DIY this project. We even have a cheat sheet to help you choose the right one. Read More
