I saw a reel on Instagram of a woman walking around her house turning on lamps and nightlights. She was demonstrating turning on all these small lights, but never the overhead light which she referred to as ‘the big light’. I hadn’t really thought about it until seeing the reel, that I’ve been living this way my whole life.

We didn’t always have overhead lighting. This house was built in 1964, so we’re the same age and it doesn’t have an overhead light in every room. Instead, it has wall sconces to light your path, and the kitchen has a florescent fixture, but I rejoiced the day it finally burned out. There’s a small lamp sitting on top of the fridge that illuminates the kitchen when needed, but I’m rarely in the kitchen at night.

This house let’s light in naturally and it starts at the back to slowly make it’s way around front, but that early morning light is my favorite. This morning I turned on a nightlight at the coffee bar to make my cuppa mushroom brew and it was so much kinder to my eyes than flipping a switch for the big light. Maybe this is a woman thing, because I know men who usually flip the switch on the wall before walking into a room and my ex-husband would chastise me for having too many lamps on at the same time.

There’s at least one lamp in every room along with some form of low light. I use the ceiling fans and they have a light attached to them, but it stays off. On the darkest of days there’s plenty of light here, but you’re surely to be disappointed when flipping a switch in search of the big light.

Find your groove with my favorite song here about light.