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 posted recently about the arrival of the appliances and some other odds and ends, and now for the completed lighting.

The lighting and wiring in my new kitchen is FINALLY completed. Everyone always says how key lighting is in a space and guess what? They're RIGHT!! The kitchen looked great once the cabinets were in but now that it's properly lit, WOW - the cabinets look even more fabulous. What a difference from the old kitchen, with one ceiling fan with 3 lights, and a lamp on the counter. Now I have 9 potlights, 3 pendants, 2 wall lamps and under-cabinet light strips. Funny thing is now that the kitchen is so well lit, all the other rooms have such crappy lighting in comparison.

Here are a few photos of the kitchen taken right after the electrician finished up (hood fan was mid-installation).



The pendants I bought at Crawford Alexander turned out to be a perfect fit with the look I was going for. They are industrial and fun and quirky...and since I have no dining table yet, everyone is cursing them because we've all bashed our heads on them numerous times. I have regular bulbs in them but because of the shape of them they give off hardly any light so I have to pick up some floodlights to use instead.



I am so happy I finally decided to purchase Tolomeos. I have always loved them but never splurged until now. And I am SO GLAD I did. I love how they look on either side of the stove and they provide great task lighting. The following photos also show the stove in place, the hood fan and the stove's backsplash installed.


Note on the backsplash: The one I had seen at the appliance store was over $500. I had this one made for $150. I need to find some shelves to attach to it to hold spice jars, utensils etc.

Potlights are a must, as I quickly learned. I had no clue on where they should go or how many I should have, so I got alot of help from my electrician. There are 9 in total, strategically placed over the sink, the stove, the fridge, the pantry and a few others. They illuminate the cabinets and appliances beautifully. They were a headache to install because the drywall and wood panelling in the ceiling had to come down so they could go up, but it was well worth it.


There are also lighting strips installed under the upper cabinets that are great to illuminate the countertop on that end of the kitchen where I will probably end up doing the most prepping. The uppers are not built with an overhang so my contractor has built a simple valance to hide the lighting strips and wires but hasn't completed it yet because he has to re-stain it in the hopes of matching the cabinet colour. There are 2 strips, and they have a low setting that gives off a yellowish light and a high setting that gives off a bright white light. Hard to photograph but here's the idea.




Later on this week I'll show you what all this looks like with the countertop installed. All I can say is WOW. And WOW.

Labels: lighting