Bright Ideas
By Ken Hoyt
For designers the advent of the CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) has been a mixed blessing. It's terrific that it saves energy and casts, in some cases, a clear, clean light. But for eyes that are used to the warmer color range of incandescent bulbs the CFL can cast a cool, less flattering glow.
My personal preference is for lighting controlled by rheostats (dimmers). It gives a bit more flexibility over the intensity of light in a room as the day turns to night and/or as needs change from bright for tasks to a softer glow for relaxing. The frustration with the CFL bulbs is that they were not dimmable. That's changed. The New York Times weighed in with an article, Any Other Bright Ideas, with a panel judging a variety of bulbs for their aesthetic value.
The Daily Green weighs in with an article, Get a Great New CFL for Any Fixture or Lamp, illustrating the selection of bulbs for special needs (like chandeliers and vanity mirrors).
By the way, the next generation of watt-saving lighting is already on the way. LED (light-emitting diodes) will be illuminating much more than Christmas trees quite soon. Meanwhile I was shopping for a lamp for a client recently when I saw one of the first LED lights, a retrofit for a can fixture... just a shade over $130 per unit.
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My small business, Interior Advocate, provides design solutions for interiors. And I write about living...
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