Let There Be Light!

Some women love jewelry. Some women love flowers and chocolate. The way to this girl’s heart is through proper lighting. For the past year, I’ve been working online from Mother Culture’s settee: a not-so-ergonomically-correct table and seating area with extremely poor lighting. Until yesterday, the only working light in the main cabin was a wall-mounted fixture (circled in green) hung such that any person seated beneath it would unwittingly cast a shadow across the table (aka: my desk/work area). Each time I needed to write something down, I’d politely nod my head in order to shed some light on the situation. You might notice there are two light fixtures on the wall above the settee, but don’t let that fool you. Of the five fixtures throughout the main cabin, only two are wired for 12-volt electricity (one of which does not currently work). We don’t use 110-volt (nor do we ever intend to) since we live on solar power.

We (meaning Ben) had intended to rewire the boat and install super-energy-efficient LED lights in strategic locations throughout. A few weeks ago, he purchased one LED light as a sort of lighting experiment. Let’s just say the experiment went awry. He replaced the old wall fixture (circled in green, top left) with the new LED light (below, right). While the energy consumption was all we ever dreamed of, the light itself shone like a blinding, sterile floodlight, burning the retinas of anyone who dared enter our cabin. And I had the misfortune of trying to work beneath that light. Despite its floodlight qualities, it failed to illuminate the cabin as one might imagine.

Yesterday, Ben worked his magic and hung a pretty little fluorescent light (circled in red, top left) directly above the settee table. He replaced the LED eye-scorcher with the old 12-volt fixture, and moved the LED light into the V-berth where nary an eye should ever be cursed to glimpse it again. And I’m actually excited to work when the sun goes down. (Well, perhaps less excited about work and more excited about trying out the new lighting. Thanks again, Ben. :)

(Side note: We still intend to use LED lights in the future, after more research into soft white LED lighting.)