Luxury Housing Trends & Home Improvement Ideas

If you enjoy outdoor entertaining and your parties often last until after the sun sets, then it makes sense to invest in some outdoor lighting.

Traditionally, folks think of pathway, house, and landscape lighting, but it makes sense to brighten up the deck, patio, or other entertaining area as well. Today you can get outdoor lamps in almost as much variety of style, size, shape, etc. as indoor lamps.

This hand-carved slate lamp features hammered copper details and a brushed suede shade that is weather resistant. The lamp can be placed indoors or outdoors and plugs into a standard outlet.

Homey outdoor lamps such as these offer a little more warmth and ambiance than your typical metal outdoor lighting fixtures.

From Uttermost

If you’re looking for cheerful landscape lights to brighten up your pathways at night, these tulips could be a fun choice.

The set of three tulip lights are solar powered, so there are no trenches to be dug for installing cables. You just stick them into the ground where the sun will hit the integrated solar panels during the day, and they’ll light the way at night.

The set comes with one red, one ivory, and one pink light. The flowers, stakes, and rechargeable batteries (which hold the solar charge) are included in the $40 price tag.

From SmartHome:

Tulip Solar Lights

These LED paver lights can be integrated into patios, walkways, or even driveways to brighten up the area at night.

Designed to be scattered (or precisely and geometrically placed) amongst brick or stone pavers, the solar-powered lights lay flat, so you barely notice them in the day. But after the sun sets, you’ve got your own lighted driveways, and you’ll never trip walking the garbage down to the curb at night again.

The square paver lights can be used to accent patios, driveways, pool decks, plant beds, sidewalks, etc,. and if you like being different, you can even integrate them into brick walls.

The weather-resistant solar lights are available in red, blue, green, and white, and they measure 3 1/8th x 3 1/8th by 2 3/8th inches in depth.

As far as price goes, they’re more expensive than typical residential solar lights, because they incorporate capacitor technology to constantly cycle power, meaning there are no batteries to be replaced. Also, they’re sturdy enough to drive over, so you know they’re not going to be cheap. The paver lights come with a 10 year warranty, though, so they should stand up to the test of time.

From CCL, Inc

If your nightstand is piled with so many stacks of books that you can’t find a place to set a glass of water, then you may want to consider a dual-function lamp such as this one:

The aptly named bookshelf lamp provides reading light and also gives you a place to set your books (in a neat and tidy manner) while keeping them within reach of the bed or couch.

The lamp features a sturdy base (we don’t want our book collections toppling in the middle of the night, do we?) with scrolling bookends to contain your reading material.

A practical gift for the reader in your family (or, you know, yourself).

$50 at Plow & Hearth

If you have family members who are always forgetting to turn the lights off when they leave a room, you could save some money on your energy bills by installing occupancy/vacancy sensors.

These systems are installed in place of regular wall switches. They turn lights on when someone enters the room and turn them off again (after a specified time lapse) when everyone is gone.

In addition to being an energy saver, occupancy and vacancy sensors are just handy. If you walk into the house with an arm full of grocery bags, for instance, you don’t have to try and angle your arm or shoulder just so to flip on the light switch in the dark.

You can also get sensors for use outdoors. They can activate lighting in garage areas, backyards, entrance ways, porches and decks, etc.

The model shown here is a WattStopper Vacancy Sensor and offers additional features such as light sensing (you can set it to activate your lights when the sun goes down), time delays, and night light options.

http://www.wattstopper.com/

Looking for some perky lights for your yard? Perhaps solar-powered lights that don’t require any wiring for installation? Well, if you like butterflies, here’s a fun option for you:

The solar butterfly string lights from Shenzhen Glory Industries are a fun way to add an after-dark decorative element to your yard. As with most solar lights, they probably won’t provide enough light to do anything practical by (alas, midnight badminton games may be out), but they can brighten up your yard with a whimsical touch.

The light set features 5 meters of wire, 10 butterflies with LEDs, batteries, and a Mono-crystal solar panel to power everything.

When you’re looking for something like a floor lamp, shopping online can be great since you can see more models in an hour at the computer than in a day spent driving from furniture store to furniture store. And unlike with sofas and chairs, you don’t really need to try out a lamp to know if you’re going to like it.

For example, I dig this hand-forged floor lamp from the Hubbardton Forge catalog. (Maybe they’ll send me one if I write about it here?)

The lamp is available in three different finishes (bronze shown) and four different shade colors (stone glass shown). It stands 58.5″ tall and takes a 100 watt bulb. I do believe it’d go nicely next to my reading chair.

Looking for some cheerful lights for your kitchen or perhaps another room in your house?

Pendant lamps can be a good way to add task lighting, and they look cool too. Especially if they’re colorful and… square.

LBL Lighting’s cube-shaped pendant lamps feature frosted Italian glass shades, and they are available in amber, blue, and white frost. Use them to give your room a unique and contemporary accent.

Available from Lumens

Whether or not solar Christmas lights will actually save you enough money to be worth shelling out higher prices to buy some is debatable, but if you like the idea of decorating your house without having to run extension cords all over the place, these may be an option for you.

There are numerous styles available, and you can find almost as much variety with solar-powered Christmas lights as with normal ones. Choose colored or white strands of bulbs, or consider these fun icicle-style lights.

The 144″ long strand features 24 white long-lasting LED bulbs with rechargeable battery lights. Photo sensors turn the lights on at dusk and off at dawn.

Pick up the set for $40 at Target.

If you like to support the green movement and you like to see things in the house after dark, you may be just the candidate for a table lamp made from recycled materials.

The Bat Lamps shown here (don’t worry–they’re not made from recycled bat wings or anything Halloweenish) are made with reclaimed propane tank bottoms, heating coils, guitar strings, and other salvaged metal parts. The “EcoShade” is made from banana leaves and is colored with vegetable-based dyes.

How’s that for eco-friendly?

The Bat Lamps are the work of Bewley’s Rerun Productions.