The Lighting Makes All the Difference

October 1, 2001 - A very popular feature at Disney World is the Main Street Electrical Parade. Audiences from all over the world ooh and ah as the characters march past them just after dark all lit up in multi-colored lights. It’s so beautiful to see all of those lights as they create the finishing touches to a day filled with fantasy.

Mark and Tracey Ramsey love lights. Not your typical lighting format, which consists of a few lamps in the living room, some track lighting in the den and kitchen, but unique lights, lights of all different colors. Throughout their house they have set up the lights to create what Tracey calls "ambience," that kind of subtle mood that seems to make their house not only cozy and "livable," but also decorative. And to control those lights, they use ActiveHome timers and Lamp Modules, which allow them to create the subtleties in the lighting that they couldn’t get on their own.

In the living room and dining room they have a series of lights that run along the floor and the ceiling along the inside and outside walls. These lights are of varying colors, mostly white, but some reds and blues. Though these colors are not real stark. To keep the lighting "clean," they set up the colors on ActiveHome dimmers which put just enough light into the air to give it a little bit of color, and help create a sense of "mystery." "It’s so beautiful," Tracey says, "to sit down there and read, or work on my arts and crafts in the evening. It’s my favorite place to be in the house."

The lighting in the kitchen is unique as well. They have two tracks of light that run across the ceiling, and each one of those lights is "focused" sort of like a "soft" spotlight. There’s a light aimed at the stove, and a light aimed at the sink. There are several lights aimed at various points along the kitchen countertops as well, to put the light where it’s needed most. For the kitchen they use the HawkEye motion sensor to turn the lights on when they enter, and turn them off when they leave. "It’s just plain silly to have the lights on when you’re not in there," Mark says.

In the dining room, they have their "white" lights focused on the dining room table. And to add color to the room, they have colored lights focused on the armoire and some of the art that they have hanging on the walls. This subtlety is thanks to more ActiveHome dimmer switches on the Lamp Modules. Thanks to this feature, they can have the lights on just enough so that it "highlights" the dining room, without overdoing it. "It’s great at parties," Mark says. "We get more comments about that than anything else in the house."

The outside of the house is also very nicely lit. Mark and Tracey have set up several lights to illuminate the porch, the driveway, and key areas around the house. For these lights they use the Dusk to Dawn feature of the EagleEye Motion Sensor to turn the lights on at dusk, and off at dawn. This saves energy and money, while at the same time adding extra protection to their home in the form of lights.

"It’s as if our house has a life of its own, and the lights help make it come alive for us," Mark and Tracey say. They also say that it has a very strange emotional effect too. "For some reason, the color in the house helps create a cheery, festive feeling that chases away the blues on a rainy day."

So it seems they’ve found the answer. ActiveHome instead of Prozac. You can’t beat that.

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