We went to Progressive Lighting this afternoon to pick out all of our lighting fixtures (with the exception of the light going over the dining room table, which we've already gotten from Overstock). Despite beginning the day at the wrong store location, and then having to drive from Midtown to Roswell to get to the correct location, it went pretty smoothly.
First, I'll note that we're putting in can lights in all of the main living areas. There's no real living room light fixture or kitchen light fixtures (besides the under-cabinet lighting we ordered from Progressive). I love a pair of pendant lights over kitchen islands, but we had already decided to forgo those since we have two islands and that would require 4 pendants, which would probably all be expensive since I tend to have expensive taste. Looking back, I think we made a very wise decision, considering our island placement fiasco. Had we planned on pendant lights over the islands, they would have been put in the wrong place. We would have either had to: a) have lights not centered over the islands (not an option for symmetry-loving people like us) or b) had to move them which would have required messing with the ceiling and the electrician coming back out. So - I'm really glad we made that choice.
Now, moving on to the decisions we made today. (Forewarning - it is really hard to take good pictures in a lighting gallery. The lights are all over the walls and ceilings, making angles difficult, and the lighting itself is pretty horrible since there are so many different lights turned on and off).
Our initial comments to the lady helping us out were: A) We like clean lines, and really don't like ornate fixtures, and B) No boob lamps. I hate them. You know the lights I'm talking about.
Front Door:
We started with exterior lighting. Our front door knob and lock are going to be pewter/stainless steel, so we initially thought we would like lights that were similar. And with the dark color of our house, we thought a brushed nickel would stand out more. Unfortunately, most of the exterior lights come in a black or bronze color. However, we did find this one that we liked, and found out that it comes in brushed nickel. There will be two of these, flanking the front door.
Foyer:
Next we moved onto the foyer lighting. We don't currently have any electricity in place for a specific light in the foyer (somehow that just got missed). Arthur said we could easily add something, so to pick whatever we wanted. My dream foyer has an elaborate chandelier, but our 8' ceilings can't really accommodate one of those. So we decided to look for a chandelier-like lighting fixture with a low profile. Luckily, we saw one quickly and decided we liked it a lot.
We then moved onto the bathrooms. The first bathroom light fixture we picked out was for the upstairs guest bath. This one didn't take us very long to agree on either. I wanted one that had a somewhat modern look to it, and it was one that Kyle pointed out right away that he liked.
Downstairs Guest Bath:
For this bathroom, I wanted something a bit more traditional. We originally picked out a very nice one, with cool looking shades, that Ann and Arthur had used in the house a couple of houses down from ours. Unfortunately, after picking it out, we found out that they were out of stock (Ann and Arthur probably took the last ones... boo). So we went back and picked out another classic looking fixture that we liked.
Master Bath:
I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted in here, except that I wanted to like it. Kyle was the first one to actually point it out, since he noted that it resembles the kitchen pendant lights I love so much. After that, I was sold. We got two of these, since the vanity is a double. This is one of the few pictures I took with the lights turned on - and the lighting itself is all wrong. Sorry about that.
Pantry, Master Closet, Laundry Room, and Garage:
Yes - all of these were chosen pretty much together, within 5 minutes. We weren't too picky about what the lights were like in any of these rooms - we just preferred it to be on the cheap side. Before going, I hadn't even thought about lights in those rooms. And now I honestly can't even remember which light went where. I guess I'll figure it out next week when they're installed!
(Hard to even tell what this one looks like -sorry!)
Downstairs Hallway:
We didn't realize this, but we have two sconce lights in the downstairs hallway. They weren't able to put can lights down there because of other things in the ceiling, so they put sconces on the walls. We wanted something classic down there, that gave off plenty of light, and we weren't really too picky about this one either. And now that I'm looking at it, I'm realizing that it's the same style as the bathroom light downstairs. So I guess they'll go together well!
Upstairs Guest Bedroom:
We decided to do fans in both of the upstairs bedrooms (guest and master) for the sake of comfort here in the South. Neither of us are big fans of ceiling fans (ha!), so we went into this with low expectations. I think we found two fans that look generally nice and will do their job well. Sounds like a ringing endorsement, huh? I really do like them more than I thought I would - I'm happy with our choices.
Master Bedroom:
I saw this fan and liked the black blades, and the darker metal. Looks more modern than some ceiling fans. I thought it would look good with the gray walls in the bedroom, and Kyle agreed. So our fan shopping went a lot quicker and smoother than I expected.
Downstairs Guest Bedroom:
We originally were going to put ceiling fans in the two bedrooms downstairs, but after walking around down there and realizing it was about 10 degrees cooler than upstairs, we decided it wasn't necessary. This fixture we picked out for the bedroom down there was one we saw really early in the process, and I loved it right away. I like the shade and think it'll look good with the silver sage wall color.
Downstairs Office:
This was actually the hardest light for us to pick. Nothing seemed to fit at first. Kyle didn't want a shade in there, we didn't want a fan, I didn't want a light that resembled a boob light, and we needed something with a low profile. We looked at every possibility, about three times, and finally decided on this one. It kind of looks like an outdoor light, which I like, but has clean lines and will look good in our office. Also, it was really hard to get a good picture for some reason. Hard to capture what it really looks like.
And, what we actually picked out first,
Dining Room:
I knew I wanted some sort of statement-piece light over our dining room table. I found this one early on from Overstock, showed it to Kyle, and we knew we wanted it. The price was right, it had good reviews, and it looks great. I think it'll have a great impact on our big living space.
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