The Best Light Bulbs

I love lamps! They are pretty and practical; adding a lovely object to a vignette while also providing a light source. Over the course of decorating my homes and clients, I’ve learned what bulbs are my favorite. Read on for the best light bulbs!

Adjustable Brightness

I very much prefer all of my lamps to be 3-way lamps; meaning that with the turn of the switch, I can make it 50 watts, 100 watts or 150 watts. That can get confusing with today’s new wattage being lesser and all the variations in measuring electricity and brightness. The gist of it is that I prefer all my lamps to have adjustable brightness.

With today’s new measurements, it can be hard to find a 150 watt equivalent. Most only go to 100 watt equivalent. More on this below!

Testing for Adjustable Brightness

Most lamps will have a label on the socket that states what type of bulb and max wattage. If you have an old lamp that doesn’t have a label, put in a basic 60 watt incandescent bulb. If you turn it on and it does nothing, but then turn it once more and it turns on, you likely have a multi-way lamp with a 50 watt initial level of brightness. Because you put a 60 watt bulb in the socket and turn it on at the first level of 50 watt, it did nothing because the wattage doesn’t match. You can probably turn it again (to the likely 100 watt level) and it will turn on. If you turn it a third time and it does nothing, you’ve probably got a third level of brightness but your 60 watt bulb doesn’t go that high.

There are also two way lamps and varying levels of three way lamps on the market. It’s all a matter of finding the proper bulb for what you have. And then making the lamps your home the way you want them!

You can easily change any lamp to a three way! My husband did our bedside lamps using these from Amazon; he even upgraded another vintage lamp in our home, too! He said it was super easy!

The Best Temperature Measurement

Now that we’ve established my preferred adjustable levels, let’s discuss how to find the best pure light. With today’s new wattage and brightness measurements, it can be very confusing! When looking at bulbs with all the new measurements, you need to find one unit of measurement that can be the same no matter what. In lighting, that is Kelvins.

You might recall Kelvins being discussed in science class when learning about Celcius and Farenheit. Kelvins are another temperature measurement and in lighting, it measures the light appearance, or how warm or cool the light will appear. I prefer for the Kelvins to be 2500-2800. 2500 Kelvins is close to that warm, traditional indandescent bulb we are all used to. Once you get higher on the Kelvin scale, the bluer it gets. You may have been buying something that said 5000K and thought that was going to be really bright. I’m sure it was bright, but it probably also has a blue tint to it.

As I’ve slowly been painting all my walls to SW Pure White, I realized the 2500 Kelvin was a little too warm and read slightly yellow on my pure white walls. Going up just a smidge in the Kelvins truly helped with that!

I’m linking the best 3 way incandescent bulbs at Target and at Amazon. These are the same thing but wanted to link to whichever retailer is most practical for you!

If you’re looking for LED, the box will say the watt equivalent and it likely displays the lumens equivalent more prominently. Most of my 3 way LED bulbs have a max lumens around 1200 – 1600. The Kelvins is still around 2700. These are the LED bulbs I have in our living room. I’ve started in this room and slowly updating my bulbs as they burn out in the rest of the house. These are expensive but supposedly I won’t change light bulbs until I’m middle age, ha!

One thing to note. I have noticed that newer lamps’ labels state they have a 100 watt max, even if they are a 3 way. It is my experience that lamp makers are doing this because there is new technology to create the same brightness with less wattage. Thus, most LED bulbs state they are a 100 watt replacement as the highest watt.

One Thing Leads to Another

If you’re taking on the project of updating your bulbs, you may run into your lamp shades being a little faded and yellow as well. I know, I know…one things leads to another! However, you’ll be amazed at how the proper bulb with a fresh shade can create pure light without casting yellow or blue on your beautiful room! I have a blog post about finding the proper size and shape shade for your lamp here. And be sure to come back tomorrow where I will share some fabulous new shades that are available on the market!