Probably not quite the style/decade/century you're looking for, but here are the fixtures I put in my basement:







The old fixtures from the 1950s looked like pie pans with some slits in the sides. Really, the only light that escaped was straight down through a diffuser, so even with 60 or 75 watt bulbs, not much light got into the room. And, you can see, several decades of the heat from the bulbs, and grime circulating (smokers lived here for a lot of that time), the ceiling is pretty discolored.

Again, all I had to do was loosen the screws, turn the fixture so it came off with the screws coming through the keyholes. Whoever installed them had just wrapped the connections with black tape (the basement was finished by the original owner). I clipped off the exposed end of the wire with the tape residue, stripped 3/4" or so, twisted it together with the wire on the new fixture, and screwed on the wirenut. Maybe 20 minutes apiece. But you can see that the new fixture has the same standard screwholes, so the existing screws were already in the right place.

They are not pretty, but there's like 10 times as much light -- the light comes out every direction but up and what goes up lights the ceiling. And I'm using my modified LED bulbs.

I think I paid about $10 apiece for the fixtures about 2 years ago.


I'm wondering if it's a California thing that Steve isn't seeing fixtures with bulb sockets.

And just for the sake of nostalgia, here is my kitchen ceiling fixture. It, too, has two LED bulbs. Mrs. pj put in some really bright ones that are very blue-ish. I'm not a big fan, but they do light up the place.



I might add some cheap-and-cheerful undercabinet lights over the counter where most of the food prep is done. I put one over the stove a while back.

quote:

Originally posted by BeeLady:
SK, speaking of under the cabinet lighting, I put in battery opperated LED strip lights from IKEA. I bought the $12 model.

Stotta Lights from IKEA

That’s nice! I bought an undercabinet clock radio/CD player that has a light with 2 settings. Very helpful on many counts.

Here is a part of the undercabinet lights in the rental where we live now:



It is pretty basic, consisting of 2-light units under each cabinet with wires held up with sticky tape. The interesting part is the white dimmer on the countertop in the front left. The units plug in behind the fridge and this little switch controls all of the lights. In addition, each light box has a rocker switch for off/on if the dimmer switch wasn't there.