Think about it. Consider two identical homes side by side. You took the first home and on the back patio you had some subtle patio string lights strung along the roofline or perhaps a trellis, or maybe even a table with a patio umbrella light string strung along the ribs underneath. Then along the edge of the garden you had some tiki torches lit and burning, giving not only a really nice tropical feel to the evening, but by burning those torches there was a minimal amount of mosquitoes buzzing around.

Now, the house next door was built identically, at the same time and with the same floor plan and same back yard. By chance, they even bought the same patio table for the area. However, this home has nothing but a single naked 100 watt bulb sticking out of the side of the house next to the back door.

Both homes have patios. Both homes have their patios lit at night. But… these two homes are NOTHING alike when it comes to patio lighting and creating an atmosphere.

Not only will having a well thought out patio lighting scheme help you enjoy your time more, but it really adds to the value of your home as well (if you have them permanently installed). However, even if you only have temporary, removable lighting such as the ever popular Chinese lanterns or even strings of Christmas lights (we’re talking the simple white ones here, not a Griswald style lighting set up!), the feeling of value will increase in your home. And if you happen to be considering putting it on the market, this is something that will come through to potential buyers, especially if they happen to come take a look at the house after the sun goes down (and if they’re serious about buying, they probably should. Plus, if you did an exceptionally good job with the lighting, you should even encourage them to come see it at night, explaining how, as beautiful as it is during the day, it becomes totally magical at night!)

This is the potential power of well executed outdoor patio lights. While professional design and installation can be quite costly, it can be a great investment. At the same time, a lot can be done with very little money – just a bit of imagination and effort on your part. In fact, if you want to consider lighting more than just the patio, garden lights can add even more to the ambiance of your back yard (or front yard for that matter). Take a look at the other article here about inexpensive ways of trying out different garden lighting ideas. It’s a great way to go about it!

So in the end, I wish you the best in finding just the right patio light set up for your personal situation. But don’t stress about it, especially if you’re going the less expensive route. You can always change things around, and many people enjoy doing just that, depending on the seasons and the weather. Fortunately for us, living in the desert Southwest, our patio lighting gets to be used year round!

Because there are so many different designs, styles, personal tastes, and unique criteria for floor lamps, you will need to look at many different makes and models to find what you are looking for. However, when it comes to looking for something “modern”, there is one criteria that I think fits in perfectly well and is well worth including in your personal criteria, and maybe even putting it at the top of the list. And that is looking for a floor lamp that uses LED lights.

LED lights are the direction that lighting is going for a number of good reasons. Probably the first and foremost reason is that they are incredibly efficient in their use of electricity. However, they still are able to burn extremely bright, so you’re not giving up anything on the actual “lighting” side of things. You’re only giving up some expenses on your ultimate electricity bill!

The other thing that is nice about LEDs is that they produce very little heat. If you’ve even dealt with a halogen floor lamp, you know how incredibly hot those things can get (you can almost FEEL the electricity – and your money – radiating off of them!) If you happen to have children around, the kind of heat that they put off has got to be a little nerve racking. With LED lighting, you won’t have that problem to worry about.

The other problem with halogen bulbs is that they are very sensitive to burning out. You need to be very careful when installing them that you don’t leave any oil from your skin on the bulb because just a little bit left on there can heat up to the point of making the bulb burn out. In fact, it is often recommended that you install halogen bulbs by holding them with a tissue or paper towel just to avoid such a potential problem.

And this leads us to yet another benefit of LEDs, which is their longevity. I’m talking ridiculously long life spans on these powerful (but energy efficient) little bulbs. How long? How about upwards of 40,000 operating hours or more! If you consider the fact that there are 8,760 hours in a YEAR, we’re talking about these lights being able to burn for about 4 ½ YEARS if they were left on continuously!

More energy efficient. Super long life span. Good quality light. Doesn’t get hot. In today’s modern, green environmental thinking world that we live in, these qualities certainly fit in with what I would consider a “modern floor lamp” design, and something you might want to move to the top of your list of things to look for.

If you do decide you want to get a floor lamp with clean, modern lines that uses LEDs, you might want to take a look at the I-Tower High Power LED Floor Lamp. It comes with a built in 4 step dimmer, one year manufacturers’ warranty, 6 high power “Next-Gen” LEDs, and it only uses 8.8 Watts of electricity. It is highly adjustable and very quick and easy to assemble. Customers who were in the market for a modern floor lamp and purchased this lamp were very pleased with their decision.

And so far I’ve only touched on the kind of light to use. What about WHERE and HOW to place them? That, of course, is a more difficult question to answer when you consider everyone has their own unique garden set up, not to mention tastes and preferences. However, there were still countless opinions to try to sift through from hanging lights to lining walkways to placing the garden lights underneath flowers and plants to give them a radiant look.

Another thing that was not in short supply was images of different garden lighting set ups. Of course many of these photos were shot by professional photographers who can make even the most mundane set up look magical. Nonetheless, it’s pretty obvious to see that when properly thought out and implemented, garden lights can completely transform your garden. It’s can be a totally new and different place once the sun goes down, with cozy corners, romantic recesses and all kinds of other new and interesting feelings.

The big question though is this. Without spending a bunch of money on a professional designer (out of the question), and wanting to make sure I don’t waste money by setting things up in a way that doesn’t quite ‘work’, how can I confidently go about choosing the best option for my particular garden lighting?

Well, all that digging around on the internet led to a really great discovery that is brilliant (no pun intended). Without spending much money and only a little time, I found out how to create very mobile temporary garden lights that I could move here, there and everywhere so that I could get a good feel for what works best. Plus, once I get everything dialed in for cheap, I already know a second use for my solution that I will share with you at the end of this article.

So who would have thought the answer to my perplexion (I think I just made that word up!) would be found on a site called www.EvilMadScientist.com? (the specific article can be found here: http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/lantern). These guys are amazing, but I’ll leave it to you to go check it out if you’re interested. For now I’m just going to share the cool solution I found there.

Basically, we’re going to create portable, battery powered LED garden lights that you can easily pick up and place, move, or hang where ever you want so you get a good feel for having a light in that particular place.

You’re going to take a small (and inexpensive) LED light, a small (and inexpensive) lithium coin battery, a mason jar (or really any other kind of container would work just as well), and some electrical tape. You can probably find all the stuff you need at your local Radio Shack, though you’ll probably save money if you order it on line. By shopping online you should be able to get the LED and the batteries for well under $1 each per pair (meaning you might buy 10 LEDs for $5 and 10 batteries for $5).

The Evil Mad Scientists do a great job of walking you through how to put these things together, complete with photos. In a nutshell though, you’re simply going to tape the LED light to the lithium coin battery which will turn the light on. You then drop the light into your masonry jar (or whatever you’re using; beer bottle, opaque Tupperware container… whatever). And PRESTO! You have yourself a garden light!

The beauty of this set up is that LED lights use so little energy that even if you just leave them on permanently, the battery will probably last for a good week or more of 24 hours a day light. More than enough time to position and reposition your lighting arrangements to your hearts content. Plus, you can always un-tape one side of the light to “turn it off” and prolong the useful life (like if you wanted to have people over for their input, or else maybe even to use for a party before you get everything permanently set up).

Speaking of parties and other uses… now I can’t wait for the holidays because I’m going to use this idea to create luminarias! As a kid I remember filling the brown paper bags with sand and dropping the small tea-light candle inside and then lining the walkway for my parents’ holiday party. BUT… despite the warm, inviting glow and festive feeling they put out, even as a kid I thought it was kind of sketchy having a candle burning inside a paper bag (fortunately nothing ever caught fire). Now, using this technique, I’ll be able to recreate the look and feel of the glowing paper sacks, but with zero risk of fire. I love it!

So going back to your garden lighting situation; using this ‘temporary’ technique will allow you to get a really good sense of where and how you want to get things set up. From there, you can start to shop around for the final product such as Kichler, Quoizel or Sea Gull Outdoor Lighting. When you’re spending money on quality goods like these, you want to feel certain that you’re going to truly love where and how you set them up. Doing an inexpensive garden lights ‘dummy run’ as described above will allow you to do just that, and you’ll be sure to love your garden lighting for years to come.

In the 19th century the wax candle started to give way to gas as a source of light. And by the late 1800s, you start to see a combination of the gas/electric chandeliers ready to accommodate whatever lighting was available.

Clearly modern chandelier lighting has come along way since those times. Of course the source of power for our lights today is 100% electricity. However, in today’s greener environmental mindset, there has continued to be developments in chandeliers to incorporate greener technologies such as LED (or Light Emitting Diodes), which use significantly less energy than your standard incandescent lightbulb. Also, fiber-optic chandeliers have become quite popular for many with her intricate designs and programmable multi-color displays.

Even if you’re not in the market for one of these more cutting-edge, modern style chandeliers, and are rather interested in what might be considered a more “standard” chandelier lighting setup for your home, there are a few things you should know about selecting the proper sized chandelier for the room in which you plan to hang it.

For example, if the room is smaller than 100 square feet (10 x 10′), the diameter of your chandelier probably shouldn’t be much more than 20 inches (ideally somewhere between 17 to 20 inches). If the room is a bit larger, say 12′ x 12′, you would be safe with a chandelier of about 26 inches to 27 inches in diameter. The size of 14 x 14′, 24 to 36 inches is a good size. Another variable to consider when sizing your chandelier is in relation to the width of the table over which it is going to hang. A good rule of thumb is to keep The chandelier about 12 inches narrower than the table.

As far as the height at which to hang the light chandelier, you should probably need to hang it about 30 inches above the surface of the table. At this height can feel confident in getting both good illumination of the table as well as avoiding the problem of people bumping their heads up against it. And speaking of illumination, aiming for a total wattage of all bulbs in your chandelier to equal somewhere between 200 and 400 W will ensure you excellent lighting of your table surface.

One thing that many people like to do, and in fact is highly recommended when it comes to such a central piece of lighting for a room, is to have it installed on a dimmer switch. This will allow you to control the intensity of the light reaching anywhere from bright light for projects and homework for the kids (for example), to the subtlest, low-light levels giving a true romantic ambiance for those special occasions.

With the wide range of styles, makes and models of chandelier light fixtures from the top lighting manufacturers such as Kichler, Sea Gull, Hammersmith, Kenroy, Quoizel and many more, there’s no doubt you will be able to find, and enjoy, the perfect chandelier lighting arrangement for your home or office.

One of the more popular styles of floor lamps that is capable of really brightening up a room is the halogen floor lamp. Halogen light bulbs can give off a tremendous amount of light and turn a dim, dark room into a bright inviting space. What’s more, halogen lights give off a very appealing natural looking light as opposed to the sometimes cold, unnatural light created by old-fashioned florescent light tubes.

One of the problems with halogen lights however is that they get extremely hot. If you have little children around, or even pets, you’ll want to make sure that access to the actual halogen lightbulb is protected. Often times the large halogen torch lights come with a metal grate to protect the light. Make sure you have that securely in place.

Another thing to be aware of when dealing with halogen light bulbs is that they are very delicate. Because they can get so extremely hot, it is important that they have no foreign substance on the glass at all. For this reason, when installing a how to lightbulb, it is often recommended that you handle it with a tissue or other soft cloth. Just a little bit of natural oil left on the glass from your fingers might be enough to overheat the glass and cause it to break or burn out.

As you can imagine, the lightbulb that gets that hot, is going to burn quite a bit of energy. If you want to be more environmentally conscious, there are a couple of better options you might want to consider. The first is a compact fluorescent light bulb. They have made tremendous advances in the quality of light that florescent light bulbs produce, and many people can’t even tell the difference between a compact florescent and a traditional incandescent bulb anymore. What you will notice is an energy savings on your electric bill if you incorporate a lot of these in place of all your traditional and contestants.

If you truly want to see a massive savings on your electric bill that you need to go to LED lighting. LEDs can produce extremely bright light while meeting very little energy. In fact, LEDs consume 1/10 the energy of an incandescent light bulb while lasting close to 10 times longer. So even though the price of an LED floor lamp might seem higher than some other floor lamps, when you consider the fact that you probably will not need to replace a lightbulb for a decade or more, and all the while that it is burning is using 1/10 the energy of a normal floor lamp, you begin to see the value. In addition, LEDs lights make for some very bright floor lamps such as the I-Tower High Power LED Floor Lamp that can he purchased through Amazon.com.

In fact, there are many things beyond just the paints and inks used on those posters that glow very strongly under a black light, and for that reason, these ‘play things’ come in handy for many people in many different situations. For example, did you know that urine glows brightly under a black light? And no, I’m not talking about some kind of weird Halloween party game… I’m talking about the fact that you can use a black light to help detect areas of urine, such as where your dog, cat or child has perhaps made a mess but you’ve been unable to put your (figurative) finger on exactly where the accident happened.

Actually, if you ever watch any of the many CSI type crime shows that are all over television programming these days, you’ve probably also seen that a black light can be used to make other bodily fluids such as semen or blood glow, too. This is extremely helpful to the crime scene investigators in their efforts to figure out what happened.

On a lighter note, getting back to the fun, party frame of mind, there are a few things that you might be surprised at how brightly they glow when exposed to a black light. For example, did you know that petroleum jelly (in other words, Vaseline) will glow a bright blue color if you put it under your black light bulbs? You can probably have some fun with some ‘greasy face paint’ for your next party! And if you want to serve some fun drinks (adult drinks), know that tonic water, because of the quinine in it, will give off a great blueish-white glow for you.

Not surprisingly, tooth whiteners contain substances that will glow very brightly under a black light. You can see this in many toothpastes, often even if they are not designated a “whitening” toothpaste. Just put some of it under your black light bulb and you’ll be amazed at how brightly it glows!

If you’re in the market to purchase some black light bulbs for your next party, or even just for your room (oh, and I hear that Legos glow really well!), you might want to take a look at some compact fluorescent black light bulbs. Just because you’re having fun with your light bulbs doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take advantage of the longer life of compact fluorescents and the fact that they use considerably less energy than your typical incandescent black light bulb. Consider the fact that you’ll only be using 13 Watts rather than the typical 60 Watt incandescent equivalent. Now add to that the fact that you shouldn’t need to replace the bulb for 8000 hours of use, and that makes it one pretty “green” black light bulb!

Plus, with today’s fluorescent instant on, no flicker bulbs, including the black light bulbs, there’s really no good reason to avoid them anymore.

It’s really no different when it comes to your garden lights, patio lights and interior ligthing such as your ceiling lights in your home. When someone gets it right, it might not be the first thing that jumps out at you when you first walk in, but there is just that “something” that works; something that you have been striving to achieve yourself, but have been unable to put your finger on it. Either that, or you know what you’re trying to go after but you just haven’t been successful at it yet.

This web site is intended to take a closer look at garden lights and general outdoor lighting (including patio lights, solar lights, low voltage outdoor lighting and more). We’ll also take a look at some interior lighting such as the ceiling lighting mentioned a moment ago. The hope and goal is that the information you find here will help you on your way to creating that special look and feel that will make you proud to show off your garden, patio, living room, bathroom, or where ever you’ve been striving to get that special look that you just know that right lighting will do for you. We hope you find the information here helpful in your endeavors.