Seasonal lighting changes

firelight and candlelight are always my favorite kinds of light

My favorite type of lighting, for all seasons, is candles. But candles are not always the practical choice, are they?

A simple thing, such as changing your light bulbs for the spring and summer season, can save you $50 in those 6 months, on your household electricity.

In the most used rooms (the kitchen and family room) I change the light bulbs twice per year, once in early autumn, and the other in early spring. We have different lighting needs with the different seasons. In the cold, dark days of winter, I need very bright, full spectrum lighting. I use the GE Reveal bulbs for many of our light fixtures in winter. They do seem to chase away the winter blues.

In the brighter, sunnier days of spring and summer, my light needs ease up. The sun is higher. The days seem brighter, and my work space of the kitchen and family room don't need to be quite so bright. Those full-spectrum lights are expensive to purchase and to use. I could just leave them in, but I would spend more on the electric bill, when that's not necessary.

5-light hanging fixture with 25 watt bulbs each

For several years, I have changed the 60 watt bulbs, over the kitchen table, to 25 watt bulbs, each spring. And then back again to the brighter lights in fall. Based on using those lights about 6 hours per day, I have always estimated our savings to be about $3.65 per month.

This year I decided to take the plunge and buy some CFL indoor floodlights for the kitchen ceiling can lights, as well.

I wasn't sure just how well I'd like the CFL as indoor flood lights, so I just bought 1. There were two to choose from, one the standard, which I bought, and another which is supposed to give a more pleasing indoor light, for $2 more. I thought I'd try out the one that was cheaper first. I placed it in one of the cans and thought it was quite good.

the area above the sink
the 2 exterior lights are CFL indoor flood lights
the center light is a standard flood light

The next time I was at the store, I picked up 5 more. We have 6 can lights in the ceiling of the kitchen, another 2 in the adjacent hall, and 4 more in the family room ceiling. I replaced all the 65 watt can lights in the kitchen with the CFLs (17 watt, I believe). I used them for several days, then ultimately decided that having all 6 as CFLs gave too much of a green cast to my 2 main work areas. Fortunately, using CFL bulbs is not an all or nothing proposition. Some fixtures can have the standard incandescent bulbs, while the rest can have the CFL bulbs.

Our kitchen can lights are divided into 2 strips, one along the stove/counter area and the other along the sink/fridge/counter area.

the area above the stove
the 2 outside lights are CFL indoor flood lights
and the center light is a standard flood light

I took the center CFL out of each strip of can lights, and replaced with the standard indoor flood bulb. The quality of the lighting is now quite good, with 4 of the 6 can lights containing CFL indoor flood lights. I use these lights about 8 hours per day (our kitchen is long and narrow and doesn't get that much natural light). Based on this use, I should save about $4.60 per month.

The remaining 2 CFL indoor flood lights I placed in the next most used area, the family room. We have 4 can lights in that room, so I replaced 2 of the standard flood lights with the leftover CFL ones. I would guess we use the lights in that room about 3 hours per day, and expect to see a savings of about $1 per month on those 2 bulbs.

In total then, changing these bulbs seasonally, I expect we'll save just over $9 per month. I spent just over $40 for all the bulbs. The CFL indoor floods are rated to last 9  1/2 years. They will pay for themselves before I change the lights on those fixtures for fall/winter.

You wouldn't think that changing the light bulbs for 6 months of the year, would amount to much. Over the course of the life of the bulbs, I should save close to $500. And this only takes about 2 minutes per bulb to do.

We use the cheaper, bulb and spiral-shaped CFLs in other fixtures throughout the house. In the entry hall we have 2 pendant lights and 1 bowl light with 3 bulbs. As these lights are suspended from a vaulted ceiling, they are difficult for me to access to change the bulbs. I chose CFLs for these fixtures mostly because I didn't want to have to change the bulbs very often. But it's nice that we're saving money on those as well.

In covered light fixtures in the kitchen and laundry room ceilings, I've mixed CFLs with incandescent, using one of each in each of these covered fixtures.

However, in the bedrooms, bathrooms and dining room, I still prefer the incandescent bulbs, and for the time being will continue to use those.

So, you see, using CFLs doesn't have to be an either/or situation. I have found areas of the house where they work well, sometimes on their own, and sometimes mixed with standard incandescents.

How about you? Do you use CFLs in your house? Have you tried the LEDs yet?

This week . . .

The cherry blossoms on the dining room table faded and were replaced with some branches of red-flowering currant.

My son bought his first car. He saved, researched, shopped and found just the right make, model and mileage. He paid cash, and bought a 3 year old Prius, for his daily commute to and from work. And, he shopped around for a good deal on insurance, and maybe found his dad and I a new company (it's time for us to shop around for insurance, too).

I began hardening off the tomato seedlings that I started from seeds. They'll be ready to plant under a row cover in another 2 weeks.

My husband began taking out some overgrown shrubs, that we were going to hire out the work for, saving us about $200, (after cost of renting a chain saw). And I can already see that this year's strawberries and raspberries will get a better dose of sun.

I got the laundry rack out again. I looked it over. The metal supports need de-rusting. Last summer that sounded like too much work. This year, I think I can do it in the next few weeks. But I've been using the rack to dry several loads of wash, anyway (just avoiding the rust areas).

My sourdough starter did not die of neglect over winter, but sprang back to life over the weekend,

and I baked two loaves of San Francisco sourdough.

I had music playing in the background, from a small kitchen radio. It's just a little thing, but it was soothing. I hadn't had music on regularly since the holiday season.

I made myself a hazelnut latte one afternoon, when I was really needing a pick-me-up. I have a bottle of hazelnut syrup in the cupboard that needs using up. This seemed like a good day for it.

(File this one under odd things I do so that I will appear to be "more normal" to outsiders.) I ran out of liquid hand soap for the kitchen sink. Our family has just been using liquid dish soap for the last week. So, I poured some of the dish soap into the hand soap dispenser, but it looked too neon pink. I diluted it with water, still too pink. So, with about 20 minutes to spare before my son's friends would begin to trickle in (they use our kitchen to cook their dinner every Sunday evening), I did a little fix-up job on the dish soap. The label on the soap dispenser says "lavender and chamomile", so that was my inspiration.

I got out the blue food coloring and stirred a bit in. Perfect color. Then I added some lotion. Great feel on the hands. Next I dropped in a few drops of lavender soap fragrance. Beautiful fragrance.

And finally, as I had added water at one point in the beginning, my creation was a bit too thin, so I worked in some thick hand cream. This is such a nice hand soap to use now. It cleans my hands without stripping the oils. I may just continue to "make" this hand soap in the future.

The tulips on the deck are just now beginning to bloom. Aren't spring flowers wonderful?!

How about you? What's new at your place?