COMMON MISTAKES THAT STEAL YOUR COMFORT AND JOY They are all around us, lurking in our homes and threatening to harm us every day and every night! Be very afraid! Stay tuned for updates! Oh no! I like to think of myself as the Evangelist of Light, spreading the good news that light- the first […]
Category: Design Theory
The Electrical Walk Through
Sadly, my latest article on Houzz.com received about 10,000 views in the first week. Why is this sad? Because way more people need to prepare for their electrical walk-through, when most residential lighting “design” is done with a Sharpie and the “you need about four cans here” approach. Make it 10,001 by reading the article […]
Mix & Match Lighting
I live by the rules. But am I wrong? One of those rules is to never mix warm white bulbs (yellowish) with cool white bulbs (bluish). I learned this rule back in the fluorescent day by looking at ceilings where some bulbs were pink and some were blue and the end result is that the […]
Lighting isn’t brain surgery…?
I frequently hear myself saying that lighting is not brain surgery, that getting it right just requires the attention of a dedicated experienced professional. I might be wrong. (Not literally. I could never do brain surgery because I would pass out as soon as the knife dug in. I’m getting faint just thinking about it. […]
Change is the Only Constant
I am as guilty as the next lighting designer. See my design above for proof. Once upon a time, light indoors depended on light through windows or flames from candles, lamps and fires. The windows were automatically scheduled to turn on slowly in the morning and turn off slowly in the evening. They changed intensity […]
Does it cost more?
One of the reasons that light in our homes and workplaces is not good for us is that our primary considerations are 1) how cheaply can we get lighting and 2) how few watts can we use. I am often asked “will good lighting cost more than regular lighting?” Yep. Let’s say you hire a […]
Rainbow Red Velvet
The Gift of Light must be fully unwrapped to be understood. Inside the gift box of white light are all the colors of the rainbow, only visible when we split the wavelengths apart with a prism or raindrops. The power of light is also multi-layered, affecting our lives in many ways. My approach to better […]
The Good Old Days of Light
I like to believe that I am a forward thinker and not a person who looks behind longingly at The Good Old Days. Most of the time. When it comes to architecture, I love where the world is headed. We’re seeing modern homes with large expanses of glass, schools with huge amounts of daylight, factories […]
Lighting can hurt you.
I believe light is a gift that can help us live better lives. A powerful combination of human history, personal experience, and deepening research backs me up: light can help us sleep better, wake up easier, heal faster, feel happier, suffer less pain, reduce the symptoms of aging…and the list goes on. My teenage sons […]
Lighting & Darkness
It is winter, between Christmas and New Year’s, and a perfect time to write about lighting and darkness. All around town, otherwise nondescript homes are festooned with thousands of tiny lights. Twinkle lights on downtown trees add glow to the sidewalks and storefronts, and in many living rooms are even more trees and more […]