One of the most cost saving areas you can manipulate when building a house is lighting. A light fixture can range easily from $50- $2,000+. There is a huge difference between those numbers, and when you have multiple to buy you can easily see how the savings can add up. My goal in our lighting budget was high impact on a low budget. We also made the switch in our new home to all LED lights. I have learned so much through the building process including: the many differences in light bulbs, the effect light has on mood, on energy, and health, on design, and finally the impact lighting can leave on you.
This post may contain affiliate links. Post is sponsored by Soraa Home.
I had general ideas of the kinds of lights I was thinking, but price helped dictate a lot of the decisions. Some of my favorite lighting suppliers are Wayfair, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Overstock, World Market, and Amazon for lights.
When you see our house from the outside we have a pendant lantern along with a series of lantern style sconces.
In the foyer, as you enter our home we have a light fixture that is formal, but understated. I love the contrast between the crystals and wood ceiling.
You enter the living room to see my favorite fixture in our home. It was the largest and most expensive, but also still checked my high impact, lowish budget lighting goal. Other lights of this size can easily be thousands of dollars. This light seems to be an excellent quality.
The original light fixtures in our kitchen were beautiful, but they turned out to be high maintenance.I updated the shades, you can find the post here about that, but these are the original pendants.
Our breakfast nook light fixture comes in second of my favorites. I love the geometric pattern.
Our bathrooms will one day have a little transformation with lighting. You’re not technically allowed to hang chandeliers over tubs according to our building code, and we aren’t rebels just yet. 😉 For now I do have this small chandelier in our downstairs master, but none in the other bathrooms.
We do have some fun, and simple vanity fixtures in the bathrooms. I love a serious farmhouse look, but I tried to balance that with traditional vibes we won’t grow tired of.
Outside on our porches and in our bedrooms we have fans because, hello, Georgia. I love light fixtures in both of these spaces, but I like a cool breeze more.
We use all LED light bulbs in our home, even the Edison styled bulbs are LED. What I didn’t know before, was the importance of the type if LED lights you use in your home.
We all are all still new to the LED bulb takeover of modern electricity. It was only in 2014 that the official phasing out of incandescent was put into practice. LED lights have proven there benefit by being very efficient in homes everywhere. We stand testament to this; our bills are consistently cheaper than in our smaller, previous home.
Just like it takes a minute to get used to seeing the whiter & crisper light produced by an LED bulb, it also takes adjustment time to buy LED bulbs because they are more expensive compared to incandescent bulbs on the upfront cost. However, on the back end they last much longer, and are a ton cheaper to operate over their life. Like the required adjustments of thinking about LED bulbs vs. incandescent bulbs, we now need to open up more dialog about the differences between LED bulbs themselves. Every LED bulb on the market is not created equally. Most LED bulbs on the market emit a blue wavelength that can be negative towards our health at the wrong time.
Each morning the sun naturally has these blue wavelengths that signal your body to wake from your slumber. In the late afternoon, as the sun starts begin its decent, the beams lose the blue wavelengths. Your body’s response is growing tired with the change of light. Our bodies depend on light in a very synergistic way.
What if the light bulb you flip on when the sun is going down is blasting you with the same blue wavelengths that are signaling you to be awake each morning? Could LED lights be making us sleep worse? It’s something I just never even considered before learning about the Soraa Home Healthy LED Bulb with Zero Blue light.
Soraa Healthy light bulbs are the only LED bulbs on the market that contains 0 blue wavelengths. I personally don’t have an issue with sleep, I am a mother to young children, after all. Sleep is a commodity over here. I do, however, know quite a few people who struggle with the ability to fall, or stay asleep. Could improper light exposure be an underlying problem? It definitely makes me wonder how this exposure to blue wavelengths could affect our sleep patterns over time. Regular LED light bulbs are actually considered melatonin inhibitors. That doesn’t sound conducive to a healthy night’s rest.
In addition to being better for health, Soraa Home’s LED lights consistently rate highest for full color spectrum. Some LED lights have color gaps, or colors that are not accurately shown in the light produced by the inferior bulb. Soraa Home’s Radiant light bulb has no color gaps AND they are fully dimmable (WITHOUT the buzz, hallelujah), and are headache proof because they don’t flicker. If you have ever been a witness to a flickering LED light, it is stroke inducing. Overall, I am impressed with the quality and excellence Soraa Home has brought into the home lighting category. They have been lighting spaces, like high end retailers and museums for years and have now moved into lighting our homes. Their dedication to producing the best lighting is unparalleled.
You can view the whole line of Soraa Home Lighting on their website, click here.
There is a load of information about light effects on their website too if you are interested in reading more about their Soraa Healthy bulb, click here.
Shop Soraa Home Healthy light here, and they offer free shipping on orders over $50.
Shop the Soraa Home Radiant Light bulb here.
The rest of the sources in this post are shown below. Thanks for taking my lighting tour and have a wonderful day!
XOXO
Kellye
