Let There Be Light!

One of the big problems with our house, as I've seen it, is the fact that our living room is so freakin' dark. It has 3 north-facing windows and one low window on the northeast corner that is partially covered by bushes, which means that not a lot of natural light is shining through most of the day. By the time the sun is even contemplating setting, we have to turn on lamps in order to see what we're doing. On cloudy, rainy days it's hopeless.

We were discussing the possibility of adding skylights when my uncle David mentioned the idea of solatubes. We'd never heard of them, but they sounded interesting so we went to check them out. They're basically these highly reflective tubes that run from your roof, where there is a transparent cover to capture light, through your attic and into your home. The cover on the ceiling is a diffuser so the light is spread throughout the space, rather than just beamed down like a spotlight. They actually transmit a great deal of light without much heat transfer, unlike with skylights. This also means they come with a nice tax credit. Bonus! They're fast to install and relatively cheap. After seeing them in the showroom, we were sold!

So here's a shot of our living room ceiling before...


And three hours later, voila!


We lined them up with the chimney, and at some point we plan to replace that ceiling fan. When we do, we'll also center it between the solatubes.

I don't have a good 'before' picture of how dark our living room used to be, but trust me when I say it was depressing. But check it out!


This is our living room now. The window shades were all closed. Plus it was a cloudy day so it'll be even brighter when our usual sunshine-y skies return. I love it! Huge, huge improvement to our lighting situation.

Thanks for the suggestion, David!



As I mentioned earlier, while holes were being cut into our roof and ceiling, the boys and I were hanging out in the nursery, which admittedly is not something we do often. It turned out great though because the guys were totally preoccupied with the novelty to do much fussing.

Oh, and they've now well and truly mastered the art of holding their own bottles. I'm over my sadness about it because it's actually quite awesome to be able to do stuff while they're happily sucking away.

Man, they look so long in these pajamas, don't they!

Joseph's even so talented that he can do it one-handed.


This boy is cute, but honestly he's also a little lazy. And necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, so he quickly figured out a way to feed himself no-handed. What a clever little munchkin!


Luke, on the otherhand, has the opposite issue. He'd much rather be using his time looking around, grabbing things, kicking stuff. When he eats, he has a tendency to flail and twist that bottle in his mouth this way and that. I don't know. Maybe it tastes better like that.


But enough about breakfast. Let's get back to playing!

Joseph, having a bit of a flat head, secretly envies
Luke's ginormous, round noodle.

The boys are 8 months & 6 days old.