Fellow Americans, what are the lights like in your home?

24 comments

1. Look up “hygge”.

2. We opted for built-in closets over preinstalled lights. In recent construction there are switches prepared for light fixtures and it’s one’s choice if to install or not.

3. My house has loads of lights all over the place.

   My room in particular has five lights (one ceiling fixture and four lamps) but I really only have one lamp lit at any one time.

4. If windows let in enough light, they’re great. When windows don’t let in enough light (like if they face north or it’s December through February and not midday), I want my artificial light to make up for it.

   If it’s evening and I’m winding down for bed, I’m probably only using a lamp or two and have the room fairly dim, and those lamps are warm bulbs.

   But if it’s 5pm in winter, pitch black outside, and I want to be getting stuff done around the house for the next few hours, I want the most light possible and have bright ceiling lights and multiple floor lamps with daylight bulbs because my living room ceiling light sucks and I want the whole room lit.

   I actually bought my current condo in part because it faces south and the light is wonderful, but daylight has real limitations.

5. Ceiling lights in every room. Lights above bathroom mirror. Bedrooms have a fan/light combo. Only a couple of lamps.

6. This map may help explain it:
   https://www.altestore.com/diy-solar-resources/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/solar-PV-potential-map-united-states.jpg

   You’ve mostly lived in the areas of the country that get the most amount of sunlight. Lots of the country have more clouds.

   We have lights in every room. I’d prefer more natural lighting, but the roofline is what it is, and we have a nice big front porch.

   Also, LOL, Seattle. Do you ever see the sun?

7. Opening the windows normally gives enough light. When the weather is bad or it’s nighttime, I prefer having bright lights. We have daylight ceiling lights that we installed because lamps aren’t very bright. I love the daylight bulbs. You can see everything clearly and nothing has to be dimly lit.

8. I don’t use artificial light anymore. Stopped using them a few years ago to test that it improves sleep. It improved my sleep big time and Ive felt much healthier when waking in the mornings. To be honest I hate LED lights with the passion of a thousand burning suns so it worked out great and I never transitioned my incandescents.

9. We’ve got tons of lights. Our house was built in 1876 without gas or electricity. There are large windows everywhere that let in a lot of light, but that only works when the sun is out lol. Living in new England means the sun is setting by 4:30 in the winter.

   We mostly have lamps. Living room is all lamps, so are all the bedrooms.

   There are wall sconces in the hallways.

   Dining room has a light over the table and lamps.

   Kitchen has a skylight so that does a lot, but we have track lighting on the 3 beams that run across it, light from the vent hood, and a hanging fixture over the sink.

   Bathrooms have overhead lights, no lamps.

   Laundry room and master walk in closet have overhead lighting.

10. The sun sets waaaaay too early half the year to rely solely on natural light.

    I have the standard ceiling fan light combos in the living room, kitchen, and bedroom. I also have a lamp next to the bed and LED lights around the mirror in the bathroom.

11. I like my apartment to be bright. during the day I get a lot of sunlight in through a very large south-facing window

    for non-natural lighting, I use soft white led bulbs instead of harsh white fluorescents so I don’t feel like a lab specimen in my own home. I spring for the 100 watt equivalents. I love those things. doesn’t matter how underpowered the lamp itself is. you could land a plane by the light of my bathroom fixture

12. I live in a small, 100 year old house. Every room has windows on two sides, and it’s not really surrounded or overshadowed by anything, so it gets very good natural light. As a result I rarely turn the lights on during the day.

    Each room has an “old fashioned” overhead light fixture (i.e. no fluorescents, or can lights, etc.) We also have lamps in every room except the kitchen and bathroom, and I tend to prefer the lamps to the overhead lights, even at night. My partner likes brightly lit rooms so his default is to turn all the lights on all the time, even on bright sunny afternoons.

13. During the day I don’t need to turn on lamps or ceiling lights for most activities if it is sunny out because I have a lot of large windows in my house. I have bright ceiling light fixtures in all rooms but the bathrooms where the lights are wall fixtures. I have a lamp in the living room, and lamps in the bedrooms in case we want less light than the ceiling lights at night. I turn on lights at night or on cloudier days. I would turn on a light for a video call or if I was sewing.

14. I live near Las Cruces, for what it’s worth. In the winter, I’m all about the free solar heating/light. In the summer, all the blinds and curtains are closed and overhead lights are used only when needed for food prep or whatever.

15. The real question is what temperature light do you use. I like to keep most of my lights towards the warm end of the spectrum and not the cold daylight florescent bulbs unless it’s task lighting. Now, my friend also has this one light panel she has dubbed “the sun” but will usually defer to using lamps should she risk corneal damage to light up the room with that one light.

16. In 2007, my then-roommate had [this lamp](https://i.imgur.com/NbzCMKU.jpg). As we were getting evicted, I told him that I’d always liked it. He told me I could have it.

    It’s had a home in every place I’ve lived ever since.

17. I’ve lived in apartments most of my life and have never had decent lighting, not once. We did own a house for a bit and I would have loved to redo the lighting but it wasn’t in the cards, so the lighting was crappy there too.

18. I like a lot of overhead lighting, especially if I’m trying to do stuff. Kitchen, bathroom, closet, laundry room, I want bright lights. I prefer indirect lamps in the bedroom so I can wind down. We have porches on the front and back, so we don’t get a lot of direct sunlight.

19. I like having both so I have the option. Ceiling lights with the power of a thousand suns if I need it, and warmer tones lamps for evenings. But my parents only use lamps and after dropping a sewing needle on their carpet once and only have two dim lamps I swore that I’d never be left without my RetinaShredder 2000 ™️ overhead lighting.

20. I have a nice LED track light from Lowes but I didn’t pick the style (renting). The bathroom has an overhead incandescent and the bedroom has a standing lamp and a nightstand lamp.

21. I just moved into a house that has lights in most of the rooms. The bedrooms do not have any lights, so my gf and I are currently using some floor lamps. During the day, though, there’s enough sunlight that we can avoid turning them on until dusk.

22. I’m in a Mid-Mod house with lots of floor to ceiling windows as well as some skylights. While I do have lights in every room, I almost never use them during daylight hours since my house is so bright.

    I’ve lived in houses and apartments that don’t have any lights in the bedrooms or living rooms. Though generally these rooms had an outlet that connected to a light switch so you wouldn’t have to physically turn a lamp on at the lamp.

23. My townhome has a skylight and huge glass doors to a balcony. I get tons of sunlight when I want it.

24. I have windows, overhead lights, lamps, and lit-up doll houses and book nooks. And solar lamps just in case. And flashlights stuck into outlets in case the electricity goes out after dark. And candles in the garage.