by Updating Recessed Lighting
Y’all, these are the coolest things. They replace your old, outdated recessed lights with clean, white, insulated LED bulbs.
We had old, nasty recessed lights that all looked different. Some had black lining, some were alabaster and others were “fish eyed” to point on to a decorative wall or piece of art. Needless to say, they did not match, they looked old and the bulbs in them put off LOTS of heat. Time to go. I had never even heard of them before but thanks to my awesome electrician, he showed one to me during our initial consult and I was sold.
I’d recommend buying the contractor multipack for the best deal. We ended up paying ~$12 per light. Since this wasn’t in the initial budget, I scaled back on our ceiling fan budget and added these beautiful little upgrades!
My electrician wanted $10 per light just to install. Thankfully, my husband found a good YouTube video to watch and figured it out to save us $160!
It’s also good to know that you can buy dimmable ones. I’m not a big fan of overhead lighting (can give me a headache) so dimmers are my best friend.
Tip: if you are painting your ceilings, remove the old fixtures before painting so that if the new ones are smaller, you won’t have a ring of color difference.
Bathroom lighting
Both bathrooms had these tulip style globes. I tried to twist them off and was unsuccessful and I thought I was stuck with them because replacing them wasn’t in the budget. Thankfully, my electrician showed me how to get them off:
-To start, I’d recommend turning the light switch off during this activity.
-First step is unscrew the light bulb and then carefully unscrew the ring around the socket. Hold on to the globe while you unscrew because that’s what holds it on.
-Once it’s removed, you can replace it with whatever globe you’d like (that fits).
-Screw the ring back on then add the light bulb. And wahlah, you are updated while still staying in budget!
Home Depot had a great selection of globes (sold individually). We got lucky and were able to reuse three globes off a ceiling fan that we replaced. Then I bought the other four globes at HD for ~$5 each. So, I spent $20 to update two bathroom lights! That’s so much less money than replacing two entire fixtures. 👍🏼
Matching Light Bulbs
When we sold our last home, our agent’s awesome marketing pro came to our home to make suggestions on things to do to get our home ready to sell. One thing she pointed out was to put matching bulbs in light fixtures. Ever since that realization, I’ve become a light bulb snob. I pretty much dislike any “bulb color” that’s not soft white. Personally, I think compact fluorescent bulbs should stop being made. And they definitely should not stick out of a chandelier to see. But I digress…
You can imagine my horror when I saw this in our “new” guest bathroom. I am pleased to say that the offending wallpaper is no more and the bulbs all match. 👍🏼
Hopefully a few of these inexpensive DIY lighting tricks can help update your home without blowing the budget!
learn, brooke
brooke's brain 
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