We recently moved into our retirement home and shopping for lighting was one of the most difficult tasks! There are just so many choices, sometimes I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not!
We first tried just shopping around on our own and not knowing if areas needed hanging fixtures, can lighting, and so on. It helped of course to get with the electricians and simply go over the plans to see what the plan called for. But, then you have decisions to make like the lighting in the bathroom and kitchen....down lighting...up lighting.....who knows...
The house is well covered in recessed lighting with LED bulbs. This is very bright, but good when you need a lot of light....but I find myself leaving these lights off most of hte time and depending on lamps, or leaving some lights on in the kitchen perhaps when we're sitting in the living room. The house is still an arrangement in process. We still have lamps to buy etc.
But today I'm mainly focusing on the lighting in the kitchen. We have a 12' angled bar which includes a sink at one end. So, we were not sure how many lights we needed over the bar. And then there is a island behind the bar. My first thoughts were, probably a couple of lights over the bar and a similar single light over the island. We were just not sure about lighting and every time we went shopping for lights....we came home empty handed.
Then we visited a lighting store and they were very helpful. The first thing they asked for was our plans, but we didn't have them with us. We toured their showroom and learned a lot about lighting. Saw some beautiful lights by Joanna Gaines' Magnolia collection. Our house is somewhat farmhouse style on the inside. More than anything it is a simple, open floor plan.
Back to the kitchen. I really liked the pendant lights that hung down on a thick wire, cord or whatever it was. That type light appealed to me more than a cluster of lights hanging down. Based on the advise of the lighting expert, we opted not to put a light directly over the island. We positioned three pendant lights over the bar. One sort of over the sink area and the other two evenly spaced along the length of the bar. The electrician was helpful in the placement of the lights of course.
Someone asked me the other day where I got my pendant lights in the kitchen. So I'm sharing this information along with some images.
When we first started looking for pendant lights for the island, I wasn't sure exactly how many we needed, but the island is about 12' in length so we opted for three lights.
We shopped a couple of lighting stores and found some really beautiful pendant lights, all quite pricey. Then we also looked at Lowe's, Home Depot and Wayfair and settled on these Allen Roth Aged Bronze Vintage Single Clear Glass Pendant lights that we purchased at Lowe's.
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The lights look like old gallon jugs! The metal part that holds the old fashion Edison style bulb is the aged bronze and the cord is dark. Edison bulbs were included with the fixture which was nice. The Edison lights give off more of a yellow cast versus bright white lights, and this has been fine. I like the look that is appears to be hanging on a thick rope like wire.
The bottle glass is a hammered style glass that is clear but not sparkling clear. The fixture is open from the bottom which will make changing the light bulb easy. For more information just click on the image and this will take you to Lowe's
These bottle lights are not quite as pretty as the ones we saw in the lighting store, but they also were significantly less expensive. We're happy with them)))
We have been very happy with the looks of these lights so far, no cons at all from my standpoint.
Also if you shop Lowe's.....and you or your husband is a veteran, retired or inactive, you can get an additional 10% off, you just have to ask for it.
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