Illuminating Ideas

With the nights getting longer and my recent outdoor sensor light hunt forcing me to spend time scouring the interweb for lighting solutions for our back door I, of course, started to find great alternatives for some of our other lighting issues (well issues for me, H isn't bothered by them at all.

Outdoors we have two other areas that need some attention:

 #1

Our front deck area which currently has a sensor light on it... yeah, not sure what burglar would try and break in to our house on that side considering it is exposed to 3 neighbours and 2 streets...  As this is our main outdoor eating/entertaining area, a sensor light that we cannot switch to just light and no sensor, means we and our guests end up doing some bizarre party ritual of flapping arms and hopping up and down to re-activate the light!  Yeah, that gets old pretty fast.

Not sure what I'm talking about..... let's zoom in a bit shall we?!

With the slope of our roof, I'm not sure if a flush mount would look "funny" (and I mean funny weird, not funny haha!).  I'm wondering if adding a wedge shaped base to counteract the slope might work and stop it looking skewed..... it might be worth a shot. 

I'm loving the simple, nautical vibe and the seeded glass of this low profile one from Lowes (but I think I'd spray it white to tie in with our house trim)

I found this one that matches nicely to our front entry light... it should be pretty unobtrusive which would be nice, though it may blind the people sitting underneath it ...

 

 

I seem to have a growing addiction to globe lights (we already have three in our basement suite, and the big one for our kitchen ), so it's no surprise that I also have the hots for this one. I think that if I get this one I might need to start a 12 step program...... However, in my defence, not only is is purty, but should work okay with the sloped roof situation, and costs only 40 bucks!

 

 

If the flush mount style looks funny, then I may have to go with a pendant, and this clean lined lantern from Rona caught my eye, when similar simple lanterns are going for close to $200 - it being on sale bringing the $81 price tag down to $20.50 doesn't hurt either!!! 

I'm not as in love with the pendant idea as it will be much more visible from the street and house 24/7, and may cause some logistics issues of people trying to navigate around our dining table area. Hmmm...

 #2

 The other area that could use some attention is our carport.  Here we have another dud sensor light at the entrance- which does a combination of not sensing, can't be fixed into a permanently "on" position, and blinding you- probably not helped by last Halloween's adult pinata incident.... (FYI- hanging a pinata from a ceiling light and having adults wave sticks at it is a bad idea..... just sayin'!)....

and a basic bare bulb fixture in the back of the carport, are not really cutting the mustard.  As the carport is our main work area (our heated workshop is conveniently located inside the set of double doors I am standing at in the above picture!), we need some quality consistent light there- 'cuz I don't know about you, but no one around here wants to use a circular saw when the overhead lights keep timing out!

So, during my online forays, this little beauty caught my attention.... at under $10 and max 100w I'd be happy replacing both carport lights with no buyers guilt - and the cage... hello!  That means that it'd be more protected from ladders, wood and other project related paraphernalia.... pinata revelers.....

Since it is under cover, it should be well protected from the elements.  So, if the rock bottom price = not optimal construction, we should still be ok.  There is no sensor on it, so it may be upgraded in the future once we find non-fugly ones.... but I think I'm willing to risk a $10 investment in a temporary light

Now, it's all about convincing the hubs so we can pull the trigger.....