Our story

We did not start it because of one particular moment. It came out of something we kept noticing: almost every house has a few spots nobody has got around to. The steps down to the yard. The corner of the garden that gets a whole weekend of work and then disappears at six o'clock. The shelf in the hallway where a lamp would look right if there were a socket anywhere near it. The table where dinner keeps going long after the light has gone. Everyone has them, everyone has quietly decided to live with them, and hardly anyone thinks they are worth calling someone about.

We liked the size of that problem. Big enough to be annoying every day, small enough that a person can sort it out themselves on a Saturday if someone hands them the right thing. That is a good kind of problem to work on.

How we go about it

So we started small, with a handful of products we would have wanted at home, and we have added to it slowly since. Solar for outside, rechargeable for inside, and the same idea running through both: nothing to plug in, so nothing decides for you where it has to go.

The rule has not changed. Everything has to fix a real spot in a real home, it has to work without wiring or an electrician, and it has to still be worth having after three summers rather than three months. We care more about the battery and the housing than about the word premium, because those are the parts that decide which of the two you get.

We are also plain about what these things cannot do. Solar needs sun, and a run of grey days means a solar light runs softer. We would rather say that here than have you work it out later.

The two of us

There is no call centre. It is us, we read everything that comes in, and if something is not right we would like to hear about it so we can fix it.

That is the whole thing, really. A small range of lights for the parts of a home the wiring never reached, inside and out, put together by two people who find that a genuinely satisfying problem to solve.

Got a question before you order? Reach us at support@sunsteadliving.com. A real person reads every email.