I’m About To Change Your Light

I know...probably not the most scintillating article you've read so far this year, but light bulbs are one of those things you don't really care about until you don't have any and a light is out.

The morning after Christmas, I decided to renovate my kitchen (more on that later) and during my time off, I spent a LOT of time at Home Depot and that's where  I met Associate Mike.

One of the 10,000 new regulations the government has been kind enough to impose upon her feeble-minded citizens in 2014 (not bitter) are the type of light bulbs you can now buy. Since I was passing by the light bulb aisle, I decided to hoard a few boxes of the energy gluttonous bulbs before they were gone forever.

A gentleman in an orange apron was re-stocking a few shelves and I asked what the new changes actually were. The good news is not much but the bad news is you'll pay a few dollars more per box for the privilege.

I found myself hypnotized by Mike as he talked about 'light bulb bases', 'CRIs', and 'Wom, Wom, Wom, Wom, Wom'. I was ten minutes into my education before I couldn't take it anymore and raked my arm across the shelf housing the Daylights and loaded up my cart.

In addition to the wonderful news that the new light blubs, regardless of the wattage, will no longer blow my lamps up, here's the most significant thing I learned from Mike:

Brightness isn't determined by wattage, it's determined by the brightness value. The brightness value is listed on the outside of the package as soft white, neutral, daylight and some others I don't care anything about. 

According to Mike, you want the brightness value of 'daylight' in rooms where you actually need to see what you're doing such as the kitchen, laundry room or bathroom. Soft white is for those rooms where you want to relax a bit such as your den or your bedroom.

I was already drinking Mike's Kool-Aid, but it wasn't until I got home and swapped out the bulbs that I realized most everything I'd seen in my life had been viewed through a buttery, soft-white haze.

Look at the difference in my laundry room (don't judge):

and my bathroom:

I ran out of light bulbs and left two of the old ones in, but the transformation was still amazing (you should probably prepare yourself for some hard truths when you put those bad boys in the bathroom. Dr. Parker's going to have to up my Botox units on the next visit).

Perry and I are still in the process of swapping bulbs out, but I'm pretty sure I don't need glasses anymore.