Think back to the last time the power went out at your home - what’s the first thing you did?  Find a flashlight?  Light a candle?  It’s only when we lose light that we realize how important it is to our general level of comfort.  I live in the great Northwest, and it’s a certainty of Northwest living that the power will go out several times each winter, spring, and fall.  And believe me, getting dressed in the dark is not nearly as bad as trying to put on make-up in the dark…  Light is essential to functioning in our everyday lives, and without it we're lost.

I think we may take for granted the convenience of simply turning on a lamp when we wake up in the night for a trip to the bathroom, a midnight snack, or to check for boogeymen under the bed.  It's a convenience that mankind lived without for thousands of years, and it's only within the last century that we've had the privilege of instant light. 

Light is necessary.  It not only allows us to see, but gives us safety — it's a beacon that keeps ships away from shorelines, directs planes, and can even summons superheroes.  Without light, baseball teams would never play night games, doctors would perform surgeries outside, and old Hollywood stars would have never seen their names lit up on marquees.  We owe a lot to that tiny glass bulb. 

Our ancestors used fire as a source of light, and while effective at producing light, fire just isn’t nearly as portable or as safe as our trusty light bulb.  The invention of the light bulb changed our lives forever, and it’s not nearly done evolving.  New technology such as spiral Compact Fluorescent bulbs and LED technology are quickly taking favor in today’s homes, so enjoy your 129^th birthday, Incandescent Light Bulb, because I’m sorry to say your days in this form are numbered.     

Lighting your home isn’t just a convenience, it’s a necessity that deserves our appreciation.  So join us on October 22nd to celebrate the birth of perhaps the most important American invention of all time.  Each time you flip a light switch, take a moment to think about how your life would be different without the light bulb.  We know we will.

Happy 129th birthday, Light Bulb...  Your future looks brighter than ever!

I’ve worked for ATG for about a year and a half now, and I just realized that I’ve become... a “Lighting Nerd.”

It all started when I walked into a local restaurant and recognized the track lighting over the bar.  Instead of enjoying my dinner and drinks, I spent most of the time staring at the fixture and trying to figure out whether it was the Spencer pendant by LBL, or the Nest Two-Circuit T-Track Pendant by Tech Lighting.  I'm sure you can see how that would get distracting...

Then a few weeks ago I was watching TV and saw a Pantene commercial where a woman with perfect hair was sitting on a couch talking about perfect hair.  To everyone else it’s a typical hair commercial, but because I’m a Lighting Nerd, I focused on the fixture hanging in the middle of the room behind her… I got excited, pointed at my TV (mind you, no one was around at the time), and shouted out (to no one, except my dog) “Look, it’s the Ether Pendant from Eurofase!”  See the ad here.

But it didn’t end there. Last week one of the movie channels was showing the 2005 spy movie, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and I noticed the Starburst Pendant by ET2 right there over Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s dining room table.  In another scene, I caught the Supernova Table Lamp by AF Lighting on a table next to the couch.  My attention was actually taken away from Brad Pitt and onto the lighting, and I kept watching in hopes that I'd see another light I could identify.

Now I can’t go anywhere without checking out fixtures.  I look at plumbing brands in my friends’ bathrooms. I examine their chandeliers, table lamps, and sconces.  I tell them how picture lights would really bring out the most of their artwork…

Yes, I’m a Lighting Nerd, but at least the first step is admitting it.

When I was in the fourth grade, Crayola held a contest to name 16 new crayon colors that were to be unveiled in their new 64-crayon box.  I remember one of the crayons was a distinct orangey-yellow, and I thought I was pretty clever when I came up with “School Bus.”  My mom helped me fill out the form and submit my contest entry — then all that was left to do was wait.  So everyday I waited with anticipation, with hope, dreaming that my color would be picked and I would go down in history as the most famous kid in my elementary school… only to find out months later that Jason Riggs, age 6, had won with the name “Macaroni and Cheese.”  My glorious color name had been beaten by a kid 4 years younger than me.  I remember the day I first saw that crayon in the box with the wrong name, and it may possibly be one of the saddest moments of my entire childhood…

Sometimes I wonder, what happened to Jason Riggs?  Did he land a high-paying job at a nail polish company coming up with names like “Maneater” or “Frostbite” or “Oil Slick”?  Or maybe he’s the guy who dreams up all the different finish names for our lighting products?...

For instance, I took a quick look at LightingUniverse.com and challenged myself to find as many different bronze finishes as I could. In just 5 minutes I came up with Warm Bronze, Antique Bronze, Colton Bronze™ (yes, it’s actually trademarked), Weathered Bronze, Royal Bronze, Oiled Burnished Bronze, Antique Dorian Bronze, Venetian Bronze, Forged Bronze, English Bronze, Imperial Bronze, Aged Bronze, Painted Bronze, Vintage Bronze, Oil Rubbed Bronze, and Corinthian Bronze — that’s 16 different names for various shades of bronze, and I’ve just gotten started!

And as you can see, each shade of bronze is actually quite different. If we called the finishes all simply “Bronze” you’d expect the colors to be close to uniform. But just like you wouldn't grab a Goldenrod crayon to color in a picture of a School Bus (yes, Jason Riggs, I bet even you'd use the Macaroni and Cheese crayon for that...) Venetian Bronze can be a completely different shade from Vintage Bronze.

So when choosing fixtures for your home, pay close attention to the actual color of the product to make sure that it will fit with the rest of your décor. If your existing fixtures are bronze, take a closer look at which shade of bronze they are so that you don't end up choosing a product with a conflicting finish.  The names of the finishes are intentionally different because there are slight variations amongst them.  Most manufacturers have their own Jason Riggs on staff to name the colors, so one manufacturer's "Antique Bronze" may look just like another's "English Bronze," or they may both have an "Antique Bronze" that look quite different.  There's no standard when it comes to naming colors. As Jason and I both know, color is all about interpretation...

Well, things are changing quite a bit around here.  Just six months ago ATG ran only 5 websites – LightingUniverse.com, FixtureUniverse.com, FloorsandSurfaces.com, KnobsandHardware.com, and DecorUniverse.com, together offering over 1 million products for the home.  But by today’s count we now have 70 websites operating under the ATG Stores umbrella, and we’ve expanded into the worlds of home furnishings and outdoor living - taking us to over 2 million products and counting! 

So why all the stores?  Wouldn’t one lighting store be enough?  Well, let’s say you’re looking for a table lamp for your office, and your style is modern.  You go online and type in the words “table lamp” and are taken to LightingUniverse.com.  Now let’s think of Lighting Universe as a large hardware store, and each category as an aisle.  Aisle one is stocked with only chandeliers, aisle two has only wall sconces, aisle three is filled with outdoor lighting, and so on.  Since you already know that you want a modern table lamp, you wouldn’t want to go up and down each aisle hoping to stumble across the lamps, so you’ll need to take the time to look at the store directory in order to get to the right aisle.  But when you get there, the first lamp you see doesn’t interest you because the style is traditional, the second is a kid’s lamp, and the third is a crystal lamp.  Since that’s not what you’re looking for, you may get frustrated and decide to look elsewhere for the modern lamp you want.  Now let’s say you go back to your search engine and type in the words “modern table lamp” instead (since that’s really what you want.)  The first site that pops up is ModernLampStore.com.  You click on it and discover that this is a much smaller store with far fewer aisles, so you’re able to find exactly what you’re looking for quickly and easily. 

So in a nutshell, that’s why we’ve been working to turn out all these new sites each week.   Today’s shoppers typically have an idea as to what fits their needs before going online, and they want to find it with the least interference as possible.  Time is important, and being able to locate the item you want with the least possible steps is a convenience we all enjoy.

Like me for example.  I’m 5’3” (on a good day) and due to my vertically challenged status I often have difficulties finding clothes that fit the way they’re supposed to.  A few years ago I noticed a new clothing store open up in downtown Seattle called ‘Tall Girl’ and thought – what a great idea!  If I was a taller than average woman I could shop there and find a whole store full of clothes that I knew would fit me perfectly beforehand.  …I just wish they would have opened a sister store called ‘Small Girl.’ 

For a complete list of all our new stores, check out www.ATGstores.com.