Outdoor Lighting

Back at the end of November, I alluded to a larger project that stemmed from prepping for our fence install. In removing all the existing lights in my "basketball court", I was really unsure if I wanted to replace them. So we went to Lowe's just to check out our options. We hit the outdoor lighting mother load! I guess due to it being winter, they were cleareancing out almost the whole section of outdoor lights. I had been thinking about switching out our existing white lights for something less ornate so this was perfect time. I think we bought one of every light on sale, brought them all home to test around the perimeter of the house. Mind you we have a TON of outdoor lights.

The whole house had the same white ornate lighting. Since we were unsure if we were going to like any of the lights we picked up, we initially started by holding the lights up next to the existing lights on either side of the garage door.
Option 1: I LOVED this oil rubbed bronze lantern light so much! Unfortunately, it felt too small for the front of the house.

Option 2: A square white light. Less ornate but still in the white scheme. It felt very beach- housey.

Option 3: Very similar to option #2 but in oil rubbed bronze.

I was quick to decide I wanted to go the oil rubbed bronze route. So the husband removed the existing white light to get a better idea of what things would look light. In doing so, we discovered that the previous owners did not even bother to install an electrical box, we simply had wires coming out of the stucco. This house never ceases to amaze me!

We then tried each oil rubbed bronze light one more time before committing:

I was hoping I would like the lantern because the price was AWESOME ( $17 each on clearance as opposed to $50/ each for the square light on the right).  But we choose the light on the right for either side of the garage door due to the size of the lantern just feeling "too small". I tried to make the lantern work at other sites around the perimeter of the house but it clearly was just not meant to be! I think its the green paint? My husband almost killed me during this project because I decided I would love to paint our house gray. I even went to the store and bought gray paint samples. He reminded me our house was JUST painted before we moved in. I am so glad I listened because that is a huge project that we don't really need to take on right now!

Anyway, here are the new garage lights.

While they do make matching "post" lights that we could have installed on the "basketball court", we decided to skip replacing the lights in that area altogether. We did however find clearance lights for three other areas around the house.

After removing the light by the front door ( and a huge wasps nest behind it), we tried several other lights in this area. Nothing felt right. We ultimately went with a small outdoor wall sconce. ( On sale for $7 at Lowes).

For the light on the back porch and the light on the side of the house (where we keep the trash and recycling), we went with a simple oil rubbed bronze lantern. We ended up getting these for $13/each on clearance at Lowes!

 Its been over a month now and we are really happy with everything. $133 plus tax for all new outdoor light fixtures sounds pretty good to me! Anyone else score any good bargains lately?