Monday, January 07, 2008

New Lighting

I'm not exactly sure yet what possessed me to do it, but this weekend I finally replaced all of the light bulbs in my house with energy saving CFL bulbs. Part of me never got around to doing it because I figured I'd just wait until the incandescent bulbs I have burnt out and then replace them, but for some of the lights I don't use that much, it could take forever. And I didn't really want only parts of the house having CFLs and part not (it's a weird thought, I know, but I like uniformity).

Having made the decision to do it, I visited Sam's Club (sadly, it's the cheapest place to get CFLs) and loaded up on planet saving light fixtures. Once I got home and started replacing bulbs, I realized how many lights I actually have in my house. I never truly grasped how many bulbs were in the various light fixtures all over the place.

Anyhow, I replaced almost all of the lights in the house and happily thought to myself that I'm doing my part to save the world, even if it is pretty minuscule when I realize the scale of my power saving. Not wasting a couple of kilowatt hours a year really isn't that huge, but I like to believe other people like myself will be following the trend.

However, not all is well in my new energy saving house. It feels different... or, more appropriately, it looks different. The CFL light bulbs give off a different hue of light and it gives the rooms in my house a different aura at night, especially in the basement. One of the reasons might be that I had 100 watt bulbs in the basement previously and I replaced them with 65 watt equivalent CFLs, but even beyond that it still looks... whiter.

I'm still not sure if this new sheen that has been tossed on everything is good or not, but it is different. My bedroom really feels different since I put in "soft" white CFL bulbs which, much like their name, do give my room a slightly less edgy feel. It's somewhat more relaxed, if you can believe that new lighting can do that to a room.

It'll surely be something I'll get used to over time, but right now it can sometimes feel extremely weird going into a room that I'd been so used to looking one way and it is just ever so slightly... off.

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