Light Fiend

I'm a light fiend - I love lights. I'm not especially picky, either; I don't especially prefer natural light, and don't especially hate fluorescent light. I just like it to be bright.

Of course, natural light through a window is usually the way to go, for efficiency's sake. It's one thing I liked about my house when I first visited: Three windows in the front room, a window and a sliding door in the back room, a window and door in the living room, and a skylight above the stairs. Plus small windows in the bathrooms. The place was very bright with no lights on during the daytime.

I have plenty of lights around the house, of course. The previous owner installed track lighting 15 feet up in the master bedroom. I own two halogen lamps, one in the living room and one in the front room. (In my previous apartment I had both halogens in the living room plugged into an outlet controlled by a light switch. One slip of the switch and zap! 600 watts of wasteful but bright light!) Of course, we just replaced one halogen lamp with an incandescent torch light. It'll take a little while to get used to.

My office at work has a window (yay!), but I keep my overhead fluorescents on during the day anyway, as well as the one desk fluorescent which works (I think the other one is missing). I have cow-orkers who are "cave dwellers" - in interior offices with no lights on, or maybe one desk lamp by their computers. That would drive me nuts. I like the night, but if I'm inside then I like it to be night and bright.

I like simple, brightly-colored walls. White and off-white is fine with me. My house's walls are cream-colored or light blue. I think Debbi wants to paint one wall an accent color in the living room, like deep red or something. Which I suppose would be fine, but it's not something I get enthusiastic about. I figure my furniture and possessions can add the necessary color as well as breaking up the spaces in the rooms. Pictures work, too. I'm pretty simple and easy to please that way.

I do like to break up the light periods from time to time. For instance, by September I get pretty thoroughly sick of the Endless Summer of the Bay Area, and I was delighted when it started raining last night. (Then today it stopped raining, the sun came out, and it got up into the 60s.) I also like to read a bit in bed before going to sleep, with just the one light over my bed to read by. (Since Debbi goes to bed earlier than me, I suspect I'll migrate down to reading on the couch a bit before bed instead.)

But most of the time I say, let there be light!