Thanks, guys, for the loveliest comments the other day. I have to say I love that dining area, and I’m glad some of you do too.
However, there was one comment that sparked this blog post about incandescent light bulbs.
It was from Lisa D. She said:
I can tell you put a great deal of time and thought into all of your posts, Laurel, and it shows. All of the ideas look lovely to me, so it would be not easy to choose. I have to say that every time I look at any photos of your home, they are just stunning. Your home has such an ambiance. Thank you for the response to my lighting and color question.
I much prefer incandescent lights too, however, unless you are aware of some secret source that the rest of us aren’t, they are, sadly, no longer available.
***
Thank you, Lisa!
I love topics like this because this world is so full of erroneous information. In this case, the mistaken notion is that incandescent light bulbs have been banned from the land. (In this case, the U.S.)
What if I told you that you can buy ALL of the incandescent light bulbs your heart desires?
Oh, Laurel, please stop teasing us!!!
Make no mistake. I’m not above a little cheeky jab now and then, but not when it comes to incandescent light bulbs.
Guys. No one has banned them. Well, not all of them.
Please stop looking at me like I’m on a day pass from the nursing home.
I still have all most of my faculties, and ran up and down the stairs 18 times yesterday. Okay???
It’s true.
The problem is that you don’t know what to look for or where to look.
Well, I bet some of you do, but the majority of you don’t.
Here’s the hard, sad truth about incandescent light bulbs.
It’s a fact that the standard general-service incandescent bulbs (the old 40/60/75/100W pear-shaped A19s (the diameter) E26 (the base), which were readily available everywhere, for over 100 years were effectively phased out in the U.S.
However, not ALL incandescents were banned.
No.
You can find them in the “specialty” categories; those are readily available which is why these incandescent light bulbs are:
- Sold in different shapes, but still have the necessary “E26”, (or “E12” if a chandelier) base that most lamps, fixtures, and many sconces require.
- These incandescent light bulbs are marketed as “antique,” “Edison,” “decorative,” “specialty,” “appliance,” “tubular,” (because they are!) or “candelabra.”
- Sometimes they are lower wattage or have unusual filament designs. The idea is that these are exposed light bulbs and therefore need to be more decorative.
- Or, sometimes, they are a smaller version of the old “A19” bulb that we all enjoyed for over 100 years before the lawmakers said. “Sorry, you can’t have those any longer.”
- You can use an E26 appliance (A15) lightbulb in light fixtures, too! They’re just a smaller bulb than the A19s we’re used to.
Please let me be clear that I am not anti-technology or anti-lowering energy consumption. Both of those are good things.
However, just as I am anti-bad architecture, I am also anti-bad lighting.
And while I certainly gave LEDs the “ol’ college try,” I’m telling you today, 13+ months after they were installed, that most of the LEDs suck. The only way that they don’t suck is that they last forever and don’t get hot.
For practical reasons, I used the warmest ones (color-wise) I could find for fixtures that require a team of electricians just to change the bulbs. I’m exaggerating, of course, but the point is that for every bulb that is difficult to change, those are LEDs.
However, incandescent light bulbs are in most of the fixtures, all of the lamps and most of the sconces and the bell jar lanterns downstairs.
The lighting always looks so white in the kitchen, but it isn’t. It’s beautifully warm, and I love it.
I am not going to go into all the reasons why I’ve grown to disdain most LED lighting. We already covered most of that in this post.
There’s all of this crapola about Color Rendering Index (CRI). However, I’m not buyin’ it. I used warm LED lights, but still, when my high CRI LEDs are dimmed, they still go a bit gray. Not as gray as the hideous recessed lights I can’t change. The only way to avoid the gray is to turn the light nearly all the way up.
However, I’m not trying to land a jumbo jet in my living room. Ya know?
When incandescents are dimmed, they go warmer, not more gray.
’nuff said about.
Bottom line. Incandescent light bulbs are not dead. Indeed, there’s a workaround our lawmakers aren’t letting you know about.
But, Laurel.
Oh dear. I know what’s coming. Don’t tell me. You don’t think 25 watts is enough light.
25 watts is a bright light.
For me, 100 watts is like a migraine headache on acid. Sure, my entire living room at its brightest is probably about 100 watts, but it’s all spread out, not concentrated in one blindingly bright source.
Here’s what a 15-watt incandescent light bulb looks like.
In fact, because these are 130 volts, they’re actually only 13 watts.
Below is the lamp viewed normally.
I love these little lamps that I got at Serena & Lily! I always have it further to the right, directly in front of the outlet. It’s closer to the sink for the photo.
Below is the same 15-watt light bulb in one of the dining area lamps.
However, there’s a 25-watt bulb in the other lamp, but it’s actually dimmed a bit. I found another 25-watt bulb and put it in the lamp above. While the 15-watt is fine, the 25-watt, which is dimmed, is even better.
Anyway, there are many incandescent light bulbs from 15-60 watts available.
There’s no secret source. I found all of these on Amazon, Wayfair, and Home Depot. There’s an asterisk by all of the incandescent bulbs I have used in my home. All of them, I got on Amazon!
Okay, here’s the widget with 20 terrific incandescent light bulbs readily available.
You can still purchase your beloved incandescent light bulbs. They might look a little different, but behind the lampshade, no one will ever know the difference.
There is also time to get gifts online for Christmas. Many businesses have a thing where you can buy online and pick up in the store, if the store is convenient for you.
xo,
***Please check out the big sale going on of my rockin’ interior design PDF guides. They are all 20% off (bundles are even more!) The sale is ending December 28, 2025, at 11:59 PM
Prices increase on January 1st. If one of these guides has been on your wish list, now is a good time to order. They make great gifts, too!
Below are the guides with a short blurb and links to more info, which will also take you to the order page.
Clicking on the links in gray will send you to the pages to learn more about each guide.
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All of my design guides are on sale through December 28th. Prices increase on January 1st.
PS: Please also check out the newly updated HOT SALES and HOLIDAY SHOP
Thank you so much for your wonderful support this year — I appreciate every one of you.
xo,
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31 Responses
I can see the flicker of the LEDs–I am the canary in the coalmine for how terrible these things are for us! The worst part is that people leave LEDs on all the time (my pitch-black view is disrupted by a single forest-illuminating bulb and an overzealous motion light across the creek). I can dry my clothes on a line, don’t buy from Amazon, compost (we don’t have trash service out here), have a husband who is a scientist in renewable energy (they haven’t done his lab in entirely yet), don’t support wars or shipping produce from far-away…but yes, I do use incandescents, and have a hoarder stash of them. (Oh, and an LED isn’t going to keep my chickens warm, nor will it help my bread rise and yogurt culture, but our lawmakers spew their petroleum and go to Whole foods for that stuff.) And when someone leaves the room, the lights are turned off just as your parents yelled at you about that in the good old days. Unfortunately my favorite ones are no longer made. And no, they’re not going to set your lampshade on fire if you use a lampshade and bulb that looks appropriate for your lamp.
Thank you for sharing this blog. The ideas are explained clearly and are easy to understand. Really helpful for anyone planning home interiors.
Thank you so much for this post, Laurel! I have never found an LED bulb that I like. So helpful!!
THANK you for this column. I have hated LED from jump and even those twisty ones too. Bad for environment too – added chemicals to the waste stream. So, joined the ranks of the incandescent hoarders. Glad I did! That being said, just to let you know that the best place my bestie and I have found for low wattage incandescent is Dollar General! TRUE! They always have my coveted 15 watt and 25 watts and 40 watt appliance bulbs too. And all at prices that won’t break the bank like ordering from Amazon. Next time you find yourself in the vicinity of a DG – check it out! You will be surprised!
Sadly, incandescent is banned in California. The best I can do is find someone in another state to purchase them for me or drive to Oregon or Nevada and pick up a boxload of them.
Hi Pinkie,
No, that was the point of this post. A lot of people believe that ALL incandescent bulbs have been banned, but that isn’t true. and I double-checked. The ban is federally mandated and the same bulbs I’m talking about in this post (specialty bulbs) are also legal in California. They can be ordered online. Also, the ban isn’t against incandescent per se. It has to do with the amount of energy the bulb uses and the incandescent bulbs exceed it.
Hi laurel,
Thank you so much for the guide on the lightbulbs. It’s always so hard to find beautiful incandescent lighting. I also have a question. I love your Bell jar lantern in your eye your stairwell, do you mind sharing the maker? Also, I did buy your paint guide several years ago., I love it and I would like to get the update. Do I email you for that and also do I get your decorating guide with that? If not, I would be happy to buy it.!
Thank you, martha
Hi Martha,
The update was sent out in September for the paint guide. I just looked up your account and see that you also purchased the Rolodex. That update notification was sent out on November 29th. Please remember that your links never change. The notifications are sent out so you’re aware of the update and don’t have to go hunting for your link.
The 333 Rules and Tips is a separate guide. Sorry, I didn’t answer sooner. Something screwy was going on with my email and I wasn’t receiving notifications of comments in my email. Fortunately, it got fixed a little while ago.
I just learned that, unfortunately, California – which is where I live – does not allow the shipment of many incandescent bulbs into the state.
Hi Lisa,
I realize it’s confusing, but most light bulbs we were all using ten years ago are no longer manufactured. So, it’s true that those are not allowed because they are no longer made. However, the bulbs I’m linking to are available online, or most of them can be found at your local Home Depot and maybe even a local hardware store.
Laurel, I love you, and I think you are wonderful!!! I still experience finding the bulb I want to be quite challenging. Often times, I resort to the trial and error method, but at least I know incandescents are still out there. Remember the time when you could just walk into a hardware store and buy a light bulb without needing a degree from MIT?!
I still have a 3-way incandescent that goes up to 250W for the lamp I inherited from my parents. I ration that bulb!
Hi Yoanna,
You can still get those on Amazon. I linked to a lower wattage 3-way that goes up to 100. I can’t imagine what 250 watts looks like.
Lovely!! Now I know to search for frosted 40W appliance bulbs when my hoarded incandescents run out. I have found a couple brands of LED bulbs that are fine for most of my fixtures, but the spots where I sit and get cozy need incandescent in the lamps! I have ONE overhead canless LED wafer light I allowed in a small hallway, and it’s so glaring and awful – but I was able to tape 2 layers of cardstock paper over it to warm it, soften it, and generally make it quit hurting my eyeballs, LOL.
What I want is the old-school 3-way bulbs for lamps!
Hi Sue,
I found a couple of 3-ways but get this, they’re not 30/70/100. One is 70/170/240 and the other one is 50/200/250. Huh??? I didn’t even know that was possible.
However, while looking for a 30/70/100, I did find a nice 100 watt bulb from Phillips and added it to the widget. If you put a dimmer on the light, you can have the ultimate amount of control which in my book is a win-win.
It’s in a red box, not necessarily at the top or bottom if you’re looking on a computer.
I have had great luck with these LED lights by GE. They have soft white, warm white and candlelight, and also can change to any color —- even red at night you want to avoid blue light. GE CYNC Smart LED A19 Direct Connect. They are easy to schedule and control with Alexa.
Hi Jeannie,
I know you mean well, however this post is about incandescent lightbulbs, not LEDs. LEDs are everywhere and while some are better than others, all of them reverberate and have other properties I’m not a fan of.
Chromalux bulbs are beautiful and available in a variety of options.
Hi Dali,
I have a strong aversion to all light bulbs with this kind of exceedingly high very white temperature. So, any health benefits would be negated by my wanting to get the hell out of wherever these lights are. But that’s my preference. The point of my post is for those who want warm, incandescent light.
I absolutely despise LED bulbs as well. I’ve managed to amass/hoard about 75 of the old 100 watt incandescent bulbs but I may find myself out of them at some point. I don’t think that 25 watts is enough light, and I’m always on the hunt for more of the 100 watt bulbs. I just keep asking WHY?????
They say that LEDs will last over 20 years, but how do they know? My electrician agrees that they haven’t been around long enough to prove that theory!
Hi Diana,
Maybe try more sources of light instead of these very bright bulbs. That’s up to you, maybe you prefer very bright rooms. I know people who do but I’m not comfortable when I visit them. True, it’s mostly because the light is coming from downlights and they’re definitely LEDs.
Oh wait! I found a 100 watt incandescent by Phillips! I added it to the widget, so look for a red box.
I ordered a small light fixture from Amazon to hang over my dining table. It required some type of lightbulb I’ve never seen before. My electrician hung it for me but he had to run to HomeDepot for the lightbulb. Once he got the bulb in & turned on the light I realized I hated it. It was way too bright & cold. Ive never used that light fixture since I had it installed.
My New Year’s resolution is to find a better bulb.
Hi Mary,
Yes, rule number one. Unless you know your electrician has the taste level, I wouldn’t let him make the selection of the bulbs. There’s always a choice and in my experience most will choose the one we hate the most. lol
It seems the lighting industry is listening to us incandescent bulb lovers.
This year it was nearly impossible to find incandescent string C’mas lights. Well, now Celebrations makes an LED that mimics the incandescent string lights. I can still tell the difference but it’s pretty darn close. Perhaps one year they’ll perfect the technology so that we can get the incandescent look without all the heat and energy expense.
Hi Terry,
They had! You know the long-life bulbs that used a lot less energy? But those, too, were phased out. It’s true that those bulbs were still a lot hotter than LEDs, but a big improvement over the old incandescents.
THANK YOU!!!!!!
Some Habitat for Humanity ReStores sell incandescents,used, but limit how many you may buy.
Hi Camilla,
Rationing used light bulbs, eh? What is the world coming to?
The real issue is, many new lamps are set up for LED bulbs. I have a mix of both style bulbs in my house and must say, there is one good thing about LED bulbs – they will not dry a lampshade out. If we are having people over for the day into the later hours, we turn all the lamps on before they arrive. Then as the day progresses into evening, the rooms are illuminated, and I do feel like I am trying to keep everyone in the dark nor do I feel a need to dash about turning lamps on.
Hi Linda,
I’m not understanding what you mean by dry a lampshade out. The fabric is already dry. Now, if your lampshade is small and the bulb is too big and bright, the incandescent bulb could burn the fabric. But then it’s a fire hazard.