Remodel Talk- Exterior Lights and Why You Want Dark Sky Lighting

I’m in the thick of our home renovation and having daily to choose so much, I thought I’d start a series with some chat about the choices and options to help others who might be in the same predicament. Right now top of my list, today at least, are the porch lights.

I have always been attracted to lights that look something like an old gaslight for the front of the house. However once I started doing some research, I realized those may not be the best choice for a lot of reasons. I had no idea I should care beyond the aesthetics of the lights. ( I know shocking! ) Looks are usually foremost to me, but then I realized those lantern kind of lamps are annoyingly bright. So why is the glare bad?

Well, first of all, bright glare is annoying as heck to the neighbors who face your home, and more importantly is bad for the earth. Is your house lit like a small prison? You may be guilty of adding to the light pollution of the earth.

Dark sky friendly is something we all should strive for when installing lights around our homes. I’m sure you’ve heard of light pollution, but regular outdoor night light causes real problems. Using dark sky compliant lighting improves the health and well-being of both people and wildlife. The combination of everyone’s bright lights create a glow to the night that prevents us all from resting properly. This includes nocturnal animals and it can mess with the earth’s ecosystem. Birds especially are very affected and cannot sleep at night and animals who are nocturnal cannot do their thing either. Even our own quality of sleep is affected because unless you have blackout curtains, most people have some light pollution in their homes at night. Choosing dark sky friendly lighting means the fixtures point downward and often shielded on the side too. The good news is it also makes for more dramatic and pretty lighting that will show your home to its best advantage.

As someone who often like to gaze at the stars at night, dark sky lighting helps hugely. Flagstaff, Arizona began a movement to stop light pollution in the 1950s and though they are a city of over 70,000 people, their skies today are dark enough to see the Milky Way. We can all do our part to make the earth healthier and choosing these kind of lights is one way. I am determined to do this for my little spot on the earth so I set out to find the right lamps. In my search I found many beautiful options for dark sky compliant house lights.

Here are a few I am loving and you might consider to make your home and neighborhood more earth friendly…

We choose this light for the back of the house and sides. We have six and we love them, unobtrusive, modern and well made.

A few other ones we considered…

This whole page at Lamps Plus is dark sky compliant.

Read more about dark sky lighting at this great website, IDA or darksky.org which is the International Dark Sky Association which was founded in 1988 and works to combat light pollution worldwide.

Kim