LED

Turns out, when you move to a much bigger house (almost 3x bigger), you get a much bigger power bill (more than 3x bigger, sob).  And so you can understand I've become a bit obsessed with making sure the kids turn off the lights already.  We also added motion sensor switches for a few rooms (garage, closets, kids' bathroom, pantry), so that I'm not always coming upon an empty room and having my head explode.

(Yummy is too short to trigger the pantry light, so I often find that switch in the permanent "on" position.  But she's cute, and growing, so I'll give her a pass.  For now.)

We've also started exploring the fabulous world of LEDs. Neither Bradley nor I like CFLs (they don't last as long, they take a minute to light up, and the government is "forcing" is to use them. Three strikes, you're out.), but LEDs show a lot of promise.  They are expensive, though...and we have a million lights.

We've been trying the L-prize Phillips light, and it is marvelous thus far.  Of course, with a price like that, it has to last to make it worthwhile, and we've been using two of them for...four months.  Still, the light is a warm color, the "diffusion" is great (it doesn't act like a spotlight), and so far, so good.

The problem with the Phillips light, though, is the restriction on closed fixtures.  Most of our non-can lights are in closed fixtures. Bradley has discovered a brand of LED (CREE) that doesn't have the same restriction, and has a 10 year guarantee to boot.  So we bought a boatload of them.  Hopefully they will live up to their promise.

We've been living with burnt-out light in our stairwell for two months now, because we weren't sure how in the world we were going to reach the fixture.  We have a wide staircase, and the fixture is not close to the wall. The entire idea of getting up there filled my body with dread, so I admit that I wasn't thinking about it.

But Bradley has. Using not one, but two, ladders, he arranged the big good one in a right angle, and rested one end on the other, smaller ladder, creating an upside down "U" shape.  With my (reluctant) help, he moved the contraption so that the smaller ladder stood on the floor over the half-wall, the other end of the big ladder rested on the small ledge on the stair wall, and the other part of the big ladder bridged the two.  (I'm sorry I didn't take a picture, but I was so freaked out by the entire concept I couldn't even think about it.)

With me holding onto the smaller ladder with all my weight, Bradley proposed to climb onto the bridge and change the light bulbs with LEDs.  I would have preferred to be anywhere but there, but the idea of him tumbling to his death with only Em to see was too terrible.  So I remained.

He gingerly climbed up onto the half-wall, carefully rested his hand on the bridge, and...

...realized that he could easily reach the light fixture just while standing on that half-wall.

In our defense, it really doesn't look like that would be possible.  Even now, the distance looks too great.  But it worked, and that horrible makeshift scaffolding didn't have to be tested.

What a relief.