We’re strong believers that if people can see quality LED lighting in action, they’ll want it. That’s because quality LED lighting is beautiful, very energy efficient, and can last a long time. What’s not to love?

So when we first launched our LED education portal, CreeLEDRevolution.com, we set out to makeover poorly-lit spaces through a monthly photo contest. The idea was to end the oppression of inferior lighting (or at least make a dent in it).

Since then we’ve awarded more than 100 Cree LED lights to homeowners and office workers from coast to coast. We followed up with the lucky winners to find out where they ended up using their Cree LED lights and what they think of them.

This week we will be highlighting follow-up interviews from some of the winners we heard back from. So stay tuned to our blog all week for stories from these LED revolutionaries. Here’s what you can expect:

TODAY: We check-in on our July 2010 winner who has developed a love for Cree LED lights.

TUESDAY: We see how the October 2010 winner made over his office and how a bathroom went from spooky to smiley.

WEDNESDAY: We revisit an energy professional who is using his LED lighting from the December 2010 contest to spread the good word.

THURSDAY: It’s not all about residential lighting. We revisit the February 2010 who shows us what LED lighting can do in a retail space.

FRIDAY: We’ll show you how LED lighting can even help a plein air painter. Confused? Stay tuned to see what our March 2010 winner did.

And if you want to be a winner too, hurry up and enter our July photo contest.

Entering is simple, just submit a photo of poor lighting in your home or office. Maybe you have CFLs that make everything in your kitchen look ghastly. Or maybe those incandescent lights in the den are sucking up too much energy and putting out too much heat. Each month our judges select one winner (and occasionally a runner-up) to receive five Cree CR6 LED downlights.

But you can’t win if you don’t enter. Submit your photo here. And read the full rules here.

And now, find out how winning our contest is changing the way one Idaho family lights its home:

July 2010 Winner Jerry Saltzer

It has been a year since Jerry Saltzer won our LED lighting giveaway, and in that time his love for LED lighting has grown so much that he has purchased eight more Cree LED lights.

“About half the canisters in the house are now equipped with Cree LEDs and I plan gradually to replace the rest,” Jerry wrote to me in a recent follow-up email.

That’s great news considering Jerry and his family were avoiding turning on lights in the living room and office because it was too much of a pain to change them when they burned out. The Idaho family won the July 2010 LED lighting giveaway after submitting this photo and explaining:

Jerry entered this photo to Cree's LED Lighting Contest.

“The living room (and office) in our house is equipped with incandescent downlights in 16.5 foot ceilings,” Saltzer told me in an email. “The light they produce is fine, but replacing those light bulbs is such a big production that we are inclined to leave them off as much as possible and use floor and table lamps instead.”

Now the family doesn’t have to worry about that. In addition to replacing the energy-wasting incandescent downlights in his living room and office, Jerry says he has installed four Cree CR6 LED downlights in his kitchen. He has also installed four Cree LBR30 LED lamps in his stairwells.

And while it probably wasn’t oodles of fun dragging out the ladder to installing all of these new LED lights, Jerry gets to look on the bright side. Since his new Cree LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, he shouldn’t have to worry about changing these lights for years, even decades, to come.

If you want to put away your ladder for a long time, enter our July LED lighting photo contest. Simply submit a photo of poor lighting in your home or office that you would like to get rid of for good. One lucky winner will receive five Cree CR6 LED downlights.