I grew up in a very dark house, so when I bought a house of my own, I installed lots of bright, recessed lighting in every room. Something happened when I entered my 40s, though, and the garish, blinding light filling every room in my house became a painful nuisance rather than a defense against the darkness.

I refurbished my grandma’s old lamp, filled some glass blocks with LED strips, and almost completely stopped using the overhead lighting I had waited my whole life to have. It wasn’t until last month, though, when I hung up some lights for Halloween, that I really began to appreciate accent lighting.

I hung a string of skeletons in the kitchen, some spiders around the front door, and plain orange lights around the mirror in the entryway, and they added a depth and warmth to the house that I had no idea I was missing. I enjoyed it so much that as soon as I had put the lights up, I was already planning what I was going to replace them with after Halloween.

I didn’t have any Thanksgiving-specific lights to hang in November, so I just put orange bulbs in a string of old Christmas lights to hang in the entryway. In the kitchen, I replaced the skeletons with some chili pepper lights that I’ve had for years. We bought them when we painted the kitchen, but never hung them up.

I know it’s not some groundbreaking discovery or anything like that, but it’s changed the way I feel about my house. I mean, I still hate this house and can’t wait for the day when I can sell it and move away, but at night, in the dark, the lighting hides the wrinkles and warts and actually makes me want to hang out in my own house again. I’ll walk through the house during the day, and see the lights, and it makes me look forward to the sun going down.

What can I say, I’m a simple man.