Design: Ceiling Lights

The first light fixture to be replaced in my remodeling project is in a place hardly anyone is ever going to see: the master bedroom closet.  When I was prepping to do the rework of that room – removing all the shelving, removing the popcorn ceilings and repainting – I found that the ceiling light’s glass globe was broken.  It had a hole in it.  I didn’t have any love for that tiny, basic fixture anyway, so it was decided to replace it.

It’s pretty easy to say, “just replace it”, but replace it with what?  There’s thousands of fixtures to choose from out there.  I started at the usual, obvious choices: Lowe’s and Home Depot.  I wasn’t inspired by anything there.  Firstly, it’s stuff that everyone is looking at and buying.  I want to fill the house with unique things.  Things that make people say, “Where did you get that?” instead of “Oh yeah, I’ve seen that at Lowe’s.”  Second, the things that caught my eye were all “expensive”.  I would see something, say “that’s not bad”, then say “75 bucks?”.  As it turns out, being unique is nowhere near the 75 dollar price point.  I would have to change my expectations there.

Striking out at big box stores, I turned to the Internet.  Here, the entire world was available, for a price.  Instead of saying “that’s not bad”, I was saying, “that’s awesome” and instead of saying “75 bucks??”, I was saying “350 bucks?!”  Somewhere in the middle, I found a light where I said “that’s pretty cool” for “150 bucks.”  This light is LED, which is something I want to promote throughout the house – get lights that survive until the next full remodel.

As I’ve said in other posts, this redo of the house requires some thinking ahead, where one purchase influences later purchases in the name of consistency.  So, the unique feature of this light is its square shape.  I suppose it’s also what makes it more expensive, that a square glass globe might be more expensive to make than a round globe (plus being LED).  But anyway, now, I need to repeat that style in other areas of the house.

98% of the lighting in the house is either florescent or recessed.  There’s really only two surface mount lights I have to work with unless I intend to do conversions, which may be in the plans for the hallway.  Lighting in the other two bedrooms are provided by the ceiling fans.  There is also some pendant lighting over the bistro table in the “dining” area.  So, the initial plan now is to pick up one more square light with nickel trim.