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Piano Lamps Sing and Make Sweet Music at Capitol Lighting!

Ambient lighting in a piano room or formal living space is the key note needed and piano lamps can make this room sing and make sweet music!  Capitol Lighting offers a beautiful selection of piano lamps and picture lighting for any room in your home. Make a grand statement with modern piano lamps on your baby grand piano! House of Troy lighting makes any piano sing and they offer picture lighting in a wide selection of finishes to choose from such as polished brass-gold, black and even satin nickel brushed steel.

Create the perfect ambient lighting in your formal living room or piano room with House of Troy lighting.  Piano lamps and picture lighting is the key note needed to create a soft and inviting glow in a formal space.  Shop Capitol Lighting online for all of your formal lighting needs and start creating sweet music with House of Troy lighting.

This is a great time of year to take advantage of year-end closeouts and end of season sales on things like hot tubs and swimming pools. The height of the outdoor season is coming to an end, but that doesn’t mean you will be huddling up inside for the next six months. The weather in southern California will stay mild for months and you can enjoy the luxuriousness of a hot tub in your own backyard. If you have a swimming pool and have been thinking about having it heated, now is the time to buy. An electrician in Burbank can help you take care of the installation process on the deals you score. The team at The Electric Connection is on standby to take care of any of the wiring and electric panel upgrades you may need to make your new addition to the home a success.

Hot tubs require their own breaker in the electric panel. They need a 240-volt outlet as well. This is a big one and not the standard outlet you plug your toast into. Most homes do not come equipped with a spare 240-volt outlet, which means it will need to be installed by an electrician. Burbank homeowners can choose where they want the hot tub placed and the electrician will take care of wiring the outlet and running it back to the electric panel.

Because a 240-volt outlet is going to be a big extra, you may very well need to upgrade your electric panel. Your Burbank electrician will do an inspection of the panel and see if there is enough room to add the breaker that will solely support the hot tub. An upgraded electric panel will give you all the electricity you need to run all the appliances in your home without worrying about tripping breakers or using weak currents that could damage the electronics and appliances. Give The Electric Connection a call today and schedule your new hot tub installation.

Today, there are three things that are impacting outdoor lighting trends, taller elevations, the shift from brown-based to grey-based exterior materials and the continued desire for Outdoor Living elements and accessories. Together or separate, these changes are having an impact on outdoor lighting.

Taller

For almost ten years now, the height of interior ceilings has been shifting from a longstanding norm of eight-foot to a minimum of nine-foot tall. Many homes and many geographic areas are seeing minimums of ten and even twelve-foot. Homeowners love the expanse this provides. The unintended result of this growth is taller exterior elevations. Because of these increases in the exterior elevation and the commensurate growth of exterior door size and height, the standard, wall-mounted lighting fixtures that flank the doors and garage of a home had grown. Gone are the 8” porch lights of the past. Consumers must seek out taller exterior lighting to compliment the extended expanses outside.

Occurring almost concurrent with the interior ceiling height increases has been a growth in urban infill architecture. Central city lots are not the same as suburban plots. They often were extremely narrow, but also quite deep. The resultant architecture is significantly narrower and usually over two-stories tall. A three-story or four story façade again warrants a taller lighting fixture, but these must also be substantially narrower. For this type installation, seek out narrow and tall lighting.

From Brown to Gray

The dominant color of residential exterior has been beige/brown/tan for an extremely long period of time. Over the last five years, a larger and larger percentage of new homes have been using grey, slate, black and even white. Stones, siding, roofing, trim and windows are all experiencing this shift. Exterior lighting has primarily been some form of bronze. That is shifting now to colors and finishes that work better with the new material palette. Look for more black, variants of grey and even aluminum, stainless and nickel finishes. Each of these will more effectively compliment the new colors.

Keep in mind that there is a fair amount of regionalism in this particular trend. Housing colors in “dessert” areas (Phoenix, Southern California, Nevada, Florida and parts of Texas) where stucco homes are de rigueur will not see this shift. The stucco is naturally beige and roofing must be terra cotta to withstand the elevated temperatures. It is highly unlikely to see the demand for bronze-based finished altering here. Expect continued demand in these specific locations.

Outdoor Living Continues

The trend toward more and more outdoor use of a home shows no signs of stopping. Homeowners want to maximize their living space and extending to the home’s exterior is a natural reaction. There are typically thousands of square feet of living space outside. Why not use it? That space has been filled with kitchen equipment that rivals the inside and seating and tables that delivers the same type of comfort as interior furnishings. Look for lighting to follow this path. Exterior chandeliers continue to grow in popularity. Pendants and linear lighting have recently appeared. Landscape Lighting provided by LED remains a viable way to add interest to these outdoor spaces. Relatively recent additions are battery-operated LED Portable Lamps than can be positioned around the area to add light where people tend to congregate. All of these forms of light are designed to enhance the already inviting outdoor spaces.

It is interesting to note, this is not a regional trend. People in the north are as likely as southerners to equip their homes with these accessories. It is often said that northerners must pack 12 months of outdoor living into four or five months and they do that with gusto! Every outdoor is primed and ready for these products.

Outdoor Trends

A tertiary trend that is slowing gaining foothold is a more contemporary overall design. Initially this started with architect-driven homes and urban infill architecture, but more contemporary or contemporary-leaning residences are appearing. For that reason, an uptick in the demand for modern designs is becoming evident. While small today, it cannot be ignored. More will inevitably be employed in the future.

Outdoor trends in residential exteriors tend to be slow in coming and they typically hold for a longer period of time than interior trends. These shifts have been accelerating for a while now. When they peak, they will hold for a longer period of time. Our love for the outdoor seems inexhaustible.

Sometimes the smallest residential electrical issue can be a  big headache. When outlets trip, for example, there are generally several electrical devices or appliances being used in one electrical zone. Then POP! No more power.

GFCIs May Be to Blame

Ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs) are outlets that trip themselves when they detect certain problems. They are designed to prevent electrical shock and other potential dangerous accidents, which is why they are required in bathrooms, kitchens, garages, outdoor areas, and unfinished areas .

Many homes have GFCIs in the required areas but not all over the house. So it’s common that electrical circuits will start at the GFCI and flow “downstream” to other outlets that are required to be GFCI’s. While this provides a level of protection for the entire circuit, a GFCI trip in the bathroom, for example, may take down an outlet in  another bathroom.  You would need  to identify the GFCI outlet where the trip happened and reset it. .  This can be a frustrating and time consuming process.

Faulty Outlet Solutions