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Lighting

This blog chronicles my entire kitchen renovation from start to finish. Greentea Design has provided me with their solid wood kitchen cabinets, and I'm taking care of the rest.

If you'd like to be brought up to date, check out the archive in the sidebar for previous posts. I’ve described my cabinets in detail, so now I thought I’d start in on all the fun purchases that goes along with a kitchen renovation. These next few posts I will cover things like the appliances, sink, faucet, countertop, backsplash and lighting.


I thought I’d start with lighting, one of my favourite items to dress up a space. I have always been drawn to lamps and pendant lights, so when I was planning the lighting for the kitchen, I wanted to make it a focal point. But once I decided on making lighting a feature, I started to panic a bit. There aren’t many decent lighting stores in this city, but I did check out a few. I started looking online as well but got a bit concerned about some of the shipping prices. One online store was quoting 20% of the purchase for shipping and other related costs. This renovation is going to have me in debt as it is, and my house needs a TON of other work, so I have a really hard time spending my hard earned money on high shipping costs. So I really wanted to try and find items locally.

Since my kitchen will be long and narrow, I will need a long and narrow dining table to be placed down the center of it (I have no dining room). I made a pretty simple decision to hang pendants over it. My first thought was a Nelson bubble lamp. I’ve always wanted one. But I really like the look of the saucer lamp, and I think that one would work better over a round table. I started looking locally and found something at a large lighting store called Multi Luminaire:


I liked the industrial look of it and it was similar to ones I had considered ordering online. They had 2 sizes, one for $80 and one for $120, and I figured I would get maybe 3 to hang in a row over the table. But then one day a couple of weeks ago I went to get my hair done on Wellington Street and on my walk home I came by a store I had been in once or twice before. It’s called Crawford Alexander, and it’s run by “designs by 2”, the interior design firm of Luc Crawford and Jamie LeBlanc. They currently have a small showroom (but are expanding – YAY!!) that has some really gorgeous pillows, lamps and accessories on display. I had seen some really funky pendant lights last time I was in there and WHATDOYAKNOW!, they were on sale! They were initially priced at $326, then marked down to $240. Then everything in the store was 50% off the lowest price, and included tax, as they were trying to clear their inventory for new stock. So I ended up buying 3 of these pendants for a total of $360!!



When I sell the house, I can take them with me and put up something cheap, and these are so versatile I can use them in any room in my next home. The only thing is they are not hard-wired, so I’ll have to get my electrician to work some magic on them before they’re installed. I love their industrial look and think they will contrast nicely with the style and colour of the cabinets. I could have chosen Asian-inspired lighting, but I prefer to mix styles and not be so matchy-matchy. I think I’ll bring in Asian elements in accessories instead.

Next is possibly going to be my favourite thing in the new kitchen besides the cabinets. When I settled on the design of the kitchen, I had an idea about lighting that stuck in my head and would not go away. When I decided to forgo upper cabinets on the stove wall, I knew exactly what I wanted to do on either side of the stove. I LOVE the look of a swing-arm wall mounted light in a kitchen, and I have come across a few that we’ve posted or seen on other blogs:

RemodelistaButtrick Wong
Elle DecoIsabelle
Inspace LocationsBarbara Weiss

There is a swing-arm light I’ve always admired, up there with Nelson pendants, and that’s Artemide’s Tolomeo. I thought since it will be a focal point of the kitchen, it would be worth the splurge. And they too are very versatile, so they are for sure coming with me to my next house. I went looking online for suppliers, and found a Canadian online store that carries them, and they do not charge for shipping. But I found a local store, Marchand Electric, who carries Artemide products. I figured it might be better to order lights through them than online, that way I would have someone to curse at if something went wrong. When I went to order them at the store (I chose the smallest one, the “Micro”), the salesperson told me they’d be $550 each. I had a small panic attack, then told her that I had found them online for $368 each. She said they’d sell them to me at that price. So I ordered them and picked them up on Monday...and I cannot wait to see them installed! I’ll have to make sure when I chose where to have them installed that they won’t hit anyone in the head when standing at the counter. (Except when I removed one from the box I noticed it has a cord with a plug on the end, as shown in the photo - these are supposed to be wall mountable. Maybe I'm missing something here...)


There will be some other lighting around the kitchen as well. The hood fan has a light of course that will illuminate the stove, and I want under-cabinet lights for the section of uppers by the fridge. That is really important because I think that section of cabinets is where I’ll be doing the majority of the prep work when I’m cooking. I also want potlights installed along the cabinet areas. Although I am not really sure how well they will light up areas so I don’t know how many I will need and where they should go. I will check with the electrician, but if you guys have any suggestions, about the potlights or any other lighting, I would love to hear it.

It seems I should be mentionning the eco-friendliness of my kitchen. In terms of the lighting, I always use those low energy compact fluorescent bulbs. And I hope to get the pendants on one switch with a dimmer, the potlights on another also with a dimmer, and the Tolomeos on another switch. This way I can have pretty decent control over the strength of the lights and only use the ones I need.

That’s about it for lighting. Next I think I’ll divulge the biggest expense so far in this renovation – the appliances. And wow, they don’t come cheap.

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Comments:
Hi, I do lighting design in the states (CA), and we've started using a lot of LED undercabinet fixtures. Dreamscape Lighting has a really decently priced striplight that can, I think, be provided with a cover, so you wouldn't have to worry about splashing. My one warning would be that LED is still very "blue" when you order white, so if your counter and backslash aren't in the blue/black/green range, it could mud up your colors.
 
I love the lighting choices. And way to go, thinking ahead for the future sale of the house!

Now onto appliances, boy wouldn't I just love a wolf stove. I recently went to poggenpohl design studio and about died, although I got to live vicariously through my friend as we picked out her kitchen together!
 
Thanks for the advice Ltgllama! I'll keep that in mind when I buy the undercabinet lighting.

And TELL ME ABOUT IT Dawn. Wolf stoves are my all-time favs (in terms of looks). Unfortunately, the 30" one I was eye-balling was something like $6700. EEEKKKK.
 
I love those pendants and I'm really keen to see those Tolomeos on the wall. They are such a unusual but clever solution.
 
Do you have any information on the lighting featured in the first photo of the post? We just picked something similar for our new kitchen but they were $900 each and that gives me a stomach ache. These seem much more reasonable. Would appreciate any leads. Thanks!
Jacinda@creativelegs.com
 
Jacinda, the pendants from the first photo are from Multi Luminaire, but they don't sell them online. So unless you live in Quebec or Ontario, you may be out of luck. Restoration Hardware has some similar ones that are a bit more expensive.
 
omg, i have serious lamp lust.
 
hi there,
you can use the tolomeo wall plate two ways - install the lamp on the wall bracket and plug it in, or have your electrician install a junction box and then cut the plug off, and insert the cord through the small black hole in the wall plate, and hard wire it.

good luck.
 
Anon, I called the lighting store TWICE and they told me both times how easy it is for my electrician to just cut the plug off and hard wire it. So I took that to mean they didn't want to order me the correct light they were supposed to in the first place. I don't want all that wire and an outlet showing so I'll go the hard-wire route. Hope it's as easy as they say, because I have 2 of those to have hard-wired and the 3 pendants.
 
Hi Kim,
your kitchen is adorable and I am in total love with your pendant lamps.
Ravi
 
I am IN LOVE with your pendant lights above the kitchen table. Do you know who manufacturers them? I'd love to see if I could snap some up as well!

Your kitchen is absolutely stunning and so original....very refreshing!

Caroline
 
Caroline, I don't know who the manufacturer is. Sorry! (And thanks!)
 
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