How many women does it take to change a light bulb?

Dear Home 911,

My sister and I live alone in an old house and recently a light bulb burned out. We can’t change the light bulb because the ceiling is too high. Should we just replace the light source with floor or desk lamps? What gives better lighting — ordinary incandescent or halogen?

MONET

Believe it or not, I’ve gotten two or three e-mails asking the same question and it still amazes me that in this day and age when women are leading Fortune 500 companies and working in the Space Station, some sisters still can’t change a burnt light bulb. 

A lady also asked this column a couple of years ago and I will tell you what I told her: You are giving women a bad name. What do you mean you can’t change a light bulb? When I was single and living alone, I could change the spark plugs in my car (today, of course, I’m too lazy to even check my tires). It’s only a matter of time before all the light bulbs in your house burn out — what are you going to do then? Read by the oven fire? Start flicking stones to start a bonfire?

The very obvious solution is, of course, to buy/steal/borrow/beg for a high stepladder. The second is to hire a handyman to change the light bulb — and remove the cobwebs in the ceiling while he’s up there. Or you can go to a hardware store and ask for what they call a “cherry picker.” It’s a long stick with a basket-like end that grabs the bulb and you just rotate the stick to loosen the burnt bulb and you put in a new one the same way. 

As for replacing the light bulb with lamps, well, that’s not such a bad idea. Interior designers I’ve interviewed always say that it’s better to have more than one light source in a room because it makes the room warmer and prettier. I’ve seen many homes abroad that have no overhead lighting and are lit by several lamps instead. In fact, their light switches are connected to the lamps.

If your main concern is simply illumination and not ambience, I suggest you get a floor lamp. The rule of thumb is that uplights (the shade is upturned, like a bowl) illuminate better because they cast light toward the ceiling, which bounces off to light a bigger space. Table lamps, on the other hand, are usually for decorative purposes and shed localized lighting like for reading.

Speaking of decoration, there are those beautiful sculptural floor lamps that have paper shade and cast soft light but are not very practical.

I suggest you get two lamps — one floor lamp for general lighting and a table lamp for task lighting. If you can afford just one, get a lamp with heads that can swivel around like a pole-mounted floor lamp so it will suit your different needs. The famous British designer Terence Conran reminds us in his book The Essential House Book that “rounded lamps are best suited to rounded shades, oval lamps to oval shades, square or rectangular lamps to paneled shades.” 

So which consumes more electricity? Halogen or incandescent? Halogen consumes more electricity but it does last longer than incandescent.

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Light My Fireplace

Dear Tanya,

Our house in Tagaytay has a fireplace. Though we rarely use it (only in December and January, when it’s cold), it has become so dirty. How do you clean a fireplace? 

Laurice

You clean a fireplace the same way you clean a grimy oven: With a lot of grumbling and complaining. Seriously, Haley’s Cleaning Hints by Graham and Rosemary Haley suggests that when sweeping ashes from a fireplace, sprinkle, wet coffee grounds on the ashes to keep the dust from spreading. Scrub the stone fireplace with two cups of distilled white vinegar, one cup of ammonia and 1/2 cup baking soda. If your fireplace has glass doors, clean them with an oven cleaner and rinse with water. Oven cleaners are available at hardware stores. If they’re not specifically labeled “oven cleaner,” look for orange-based cleaners that work well on ovens.

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Home 911 answers questions about the home — cleaning problems, DIY projects, decorating ideas, home store resources, and things you’ve always wanted to know about but never had the friends to ask. Home 911 runs twice a month (or is supposed to anyway) and will ask the experts on your behalf. For questions and suggestions, e-mail philstar_home911@yahoo.com. Please include your first name/pseudonym.  All questions will be answered through this column — Tanya is too lazy and too chatty to answer individually.