Home Decorating Quiries: Exteriour Lighting

We are still in the process of updating and flashifyin' the old abode.


Last night was miserable...the kind of evening where you realise your whole weekend was wasted in terms of your plans to acquire and redo things in your home. So, when i get antsy like that, a trip to the hardware store helps.

I went looking for a closet system for Cookie Monster's room, since we couldn't find a bed for her this weekend. Yet, i returned with light fixtures for the exteriour of our home. Woot!


They're things that have always needed repair, and we've just never gotten around to, except when the earthquake in 2001, a couple days after we returned from our honeymoon, knocked out our old fixture near the front door. :o) We replaced it with something cheap from the local stop and shop out of sheer desparation because we couldn't afford much more back then.


Last night's score was made possible by the local Big Box hardware stores "clearance" sale.


Here's my plan:


Since our handles on our doors and windows are rubbed oil bronze, i stuck with the rubbed oil bronze looking fixtures. You can see in the photo below we have retro looking diamond patterns in our door windows,

so i was glad to have found something last night that highlighted those crazy diamond shapes. We have one for our front door and one for the utility door in the carport.

Won't it look a whole lot groovier than this sad little thing there now?? At least it will match the house anyway!

Now for the dilemma...on the deck. We've always had this ugly old fixture here, that is controlled by a light switch that actually controls lights in two completely separate areas. So to turn this "swell" fixture here by the deck door on and off, you have to actually screw or unscrew the light bulbs from their sockets. Well, what can i say....now you know one of the reasons why i want to move so badly. :o) As you know, it's not very safe to unscrew a 100w bulb from a light socket after it's been on for more than about, oh, 10 seconds, and likewise it's not safe to turn the light switch off, as it controls our flood lights on the side of the house that illuminates the long driveway and also alert us in the night if someone is in the yard as it is attached to a motion sensor. Brilliant, eh? It's almost like connecting the wiring for your refrigeratour's plug to your kitchen light switch. :o)

So i came up with a couple of motion sensor lamps, but i need to decide which would be better looking/more efficient. Should we go "matchy-mathcy" and use a smaller, thinner lamp that has the same design as the other lamps (even though our deck doors don't have those diamond patterns in them)?

Or do you do something totally wild and crazy and use a big round lamp like this...that may infact emit more light?

Here's a better view of the deck door.

and the side of the house with the deck.

What do you think? I guess i'm not completely caring, because the best part about it is that when i'm the one out on the deck late at night in the summer, i will still have my fingerprints right where they are supposed to be when i come back inside the house. :O)

I am just going to have to focus on my little slice of Spring on the deck and wonder about which light fixture would look nice out there. :o) And i'd love some of your imput too.