Our main area lacks overhead lighting. I have never wanted to put floor lamps in there because in my experience, floor lamps and young children don’t combine well. When we moved in, I bought a couple of wall lamps from IKEA. Because they were wall mounted, they didn’t take up any extra space, and the kids couldn’t knock them over. My mom also lent me a lamp that had been sitting in her storage for 25 years: an old hanging globe lamp.

Here’s aside story with that lamp. Last year I was setting up the Christmas tree and the stupid lamp was in the way. I took a step back to analyze the situation and figured out that the lamp would work perfectly as the topper to the tree.

We’ve had the three lamps since we moved in a year ago and recently I decided they weren’t good enough. I wanted more light, and something I could turn on as soon as I walked into the room. (All of the lamps were on the opposite wall, necessasitating crossing the room in the dark to turn them on.) My husband and I started talking about what we could do. Putting in an overhead was a bit of a hassle since the attic bedroom is finished. I thought about putting up a fixture on the wall that was devoid of lights, and went online looking at options, but couldn’t really find anything. I was still opposed to floor lamps, but then realized that we could put a lamp on the shelf. So then we looked online for lamps that would work. We had been talking and looking at different options for a long time, when my husband asked why we didn’t just use the extra lamp downstairs. I had forgotten we had it. It worked great for what we needed it for.

It took five minutes to solve a problem I puzzled over for an hour. The first place I should have looked for a solution was in my own house, not just adding on more junk. The best solutions are inexpensive, easy and quick, and they are often found by just evaluating what we have, not wanting more.