Nerds will literally build an artificial sun instead of going outside
Rationalists love to evangelize about lumenators and the mood/energy benefits of getting as many lux as possible. Give us more! But while I would never discourage someone from building a lumenator, I would hesitate to recommend it as a first-line treatment.
Now, I do consider myself to be pro-lumenator. I made one two and use them daily in winter to stave off seasonal depression. But they were a pain in the ass to build, cost non-trivial amounts of money and worst of all, still give me far fewer lux than, um, leaving my house.
Because light intensity drops off quadratically with distance, very few of a lightbulb's lumens will reach your eyes as lux. This means you can buy lots of bright lightbulbs, but you will struggle to hit medically significant amounts of lux (often quoted as 2,500 - 10,000 for treating SAD) unless the bulbs are weirdly close to your face1. Brightly illuminating an entire room is challenging for similar reasons.
Instead, you are more likely to end up with 500 - 1,000 lux, at least based on lumenators in my social circle2. This definitely feels quite bright, but you have to use it for extended periods to get hypothetical therapeutic effects.
On the other hand, if you go outside while the sun is up (even if cloudy), you will struggle to go below 3,000 lux. On a sunny day you can easily clear 100,0003. It is a little embarrassing how much effort it takes to build a lumenator, only to barely reach the same bracket as a gloomy day4.
So, should you build a lumenator? Maybe! They're admittedly pretty nice if you spend a lot of time working at home, particularly in the evenings, or if you have seasonal depression. But a 30 minute walk is free, basically always accessible, worth doing for many other reasons, and will give you orders of magnitude more lux than your lumenator. So maybe try that first and see how strong your desire for lux-maxxing really is.
On the other hand, you can buy one bright lightbulb, have it in your face for 30 minutes daily and get a simple trial of the antidepressant effects of light therapy.↩
Jenn's lumenator post helpfully points out that you can easily measure lux on your phone. This is a good thing to check in your environment whether or not you have a lumenator.↩
For safety reasons, DO NOT build a lumenator that delivers 100,000 lux inside your home.↩
This has the lightly horrifying implication that without the lumenator, you might as well be living in a dark cave.↩