A few years ago, our driveway lamp post started falling apart. We get some crazy wind here in Fairfield, CT and once the lamp started having issues, it quickly got worse. There were broken glass pieces and the top wouldn’t stay on and the bulb would never stand up straight but I’m fairly certain that issue predates our residence in this home.

My origin story and my Native Mode is the furthest thing from Handy Man so I just kept kind of piecing the lamp back together in the most mailing-it-in way possible which was ok, I guess. However, our recent night winds (Seriously. I don’t know how we didn’t wake up in Oz.) were fairly drastic and the top of our lamp landed in our driveway hard enough that I wasn’t able sit the bent metal top back properly on top of the post as it had been mangled too out of shape. And thus, despite my best efforts to NOT become knowledgable about lamp posts, I was required to go into learning mode.

As with most things these days, there wasn’t a wealth of options for lamp posts in the physical stores. Even as big as Home Depot is, there were only a few choices and none of them really fit the bill. I should mention that I do use a slightly larger LIFX smart bulb for our driveway lamp and many of the lamps available wouldn’t be able to accommodate my smart bulb.

That said, I was hopeful for the Baytown II Lamp as it had a couple of things going for it. I loved the idea that it was solar. Any time I have to deal with our home’s electric situation, I’m often left asking, “Why did they do this?” and I know next to nothing about dealing with electricity. So, the idea that I could ignore the wires that run out to the lamp post and just let the Sun handle it? That excited me to no end. However, since the solar lamp post doesn’t use wired electricity, that negates the power switch we have inside our home. I would have been fine with that because, as I mentioned, I use a smart bulb and I control all of our outdoor light thru our various Amazon Echos, I didn’t think the lack of a power switch would be an issue. However, you can’t use a standard bulb with this lamp. You have to use the one that comes with the lamp post as that is the only bulb that will fit. Still, I thought it was worth the try and maybe I’d figure something out.

Sadly, the final straw was that, although I turned the lamp on to the High setting (as opposed to Low or Off), the bulb in the lamp just didn’t have enough power to light up our driveway. In fairness to the Baytown II, it probably isn’t supposed to. I’m guessing maybe it’s more of a next to the door on the house kind of light. I’m not sure. What I do know is that my best life lessons come from the mistakes I’ve made and so this is one of those.

So, I went online and ordered the Bel Air Lighting Catalina which is a more traditional lamp post in that is hard wired and, I believe, can take whatever bulb I put in it. Home Depot says I’ll have it by Monday. In theory, when the time comes, I’ll let you know how that went.