And Our Contractor Said...

"Let their be light!"

He had an idea for a lighting experiment way more scientific than ours.

He hung a 4 inch can with a compact fluorescent bulb in our downstairs hallway (left) and a 6 inch can with our awesome LED bulb in Rob's studio (above Rob) and put a shower trim on them so we couldn't see the bulb.

You can tell by how blurry the photos are that the lighting isn't super bright, but it's the same quality as the $300 fixture we saw at Western lighting for, drumroll please, $27 plus tax and the bulb ($25 for the awesome LED and about $2 for the compact fluorescent.)

Hm.  Guess we can afford to light the basement after all!

A Very Unscientific Experiment

We're having sticker shock over the cost of the electrical for the basement.

First, the electrician's bid came in at almost TWICE what it cost to rewire the whole house and upgrade the panel two years ago.  That doesn't include fixtures.

Second, we want LED lights and the fixtures that give off the warm yellow light we like cost $300.  Our lighting plan calls for 25 of them.  Ouch!

Right now we are using a Philips EnduraLED bulb with a standard base.  It gives off the light we like and, at $25, the price is right.

To see if we liked the way it looked recessed, we took a six inch flower pot, covered it with aluminum foil to simulate the reflective surface of a recessed can and turned out all the lights in the living room.  It gave off a very nice light with a 6 foot radius where the light was strong enough to read by.

Now I just need to figure out some way to simulate a lens covering the bulb.  If we like how that looks, we've cut our fixture cost by over 80%!