I have previously shared photos of the exterior of The Cabin. However, I’m posting a new photo below because we have made a few changes. No more green shutters! The shutters are now blue and I love them. (Kenn chose the yellow for the front door, so I got to choose the color for the shutters.)

What you haven’t seen until now is the interior. The living area is a “great room” with a lofted ceiling. The walls of the living area are a dark wood as are two of the bathrooms; the bedrooms and one bath have sheet rock walls. However, even in the rooms with traditional walls, the doors, door frames, window frames, and base boards are stained a dark brown. The wood walls are perfect for decorating. Want to hang a picture? Just grab a hammer and nail. Not the right place? Just yank the nail out. There’s no need to patch the nail hole, no one will ever see it. However, all of the brown makes the house DARK.

We have a wall of shutters (dark brown, of course) between the living and dining areas that cover sliding glass doors. When we’re home during the day, we open one side of the shutters to let in more light, and the cats enjoy watching the world go by. Then night falls and the shutters are closed. This is when I turn on almost every light on the main level: the kitchen light, the dining room light, and the three hallway lights. Occasionally, even all of these lights leave me feeling like I’m sitting in the dark.

I have to admit that even feeling like I was living in a cave, it took me far too long to actually check the fixtures for burnt out bulbs. LED lights are bright and all that, but I miss incandescent bulbs. Flip the switch and and incandescent bulb would fail with an audible pop and one last dramatic flare of light; there was no doubt that the bulb needed to be replaced. LED bulbs just quietly fail and it seems to take a while for the failure to register with me. In addition to replacing failed bulbs, I replaced the yellow-tinted “daylight” bulbs with the brighter “bright white” bulbs. This small change made a noticeable difference.

A couple of weeks ago, I was once again replacing burnt out bulbs when I told Kenn that I wanted to replace one of the hall fixtures; it was a smaller one-bulb fixture with a translucent globe so it really wasn’t providing a lot of light. Kenn agreed and said he wanted a light that would actually illuminate the interior of the hall closets. So, we made a trip to Lowe’s and bought a replacement fixture that not only matches the other two, but has a clear globe. The new fixture produces such bright light that Kenn says he feels like there’s a spotlight shining on him whenever he is in that area. Sounds to me like Mission Accomplished!

On of my future goals is to replace the sliding glass doors with French doors thereby getting rid of the dark wall o’ shutters. Not only will that provide more natural light during the day, but I will no longer have to dust the bloody shutters which is one of my least favorite chores.🙌

Are there any changes you would make to your home?