Step 20: Lighting

November 2018 

It's amazing how many different lights you have to pick out when you are re-doing an entire house. We had mostly recessed lighting, so I thought it'd be a quick trip to the lighting store to pick out a few things, but it took almost two hours. Apparently, even for recessed lighting, you have to pick what color you want the bulbs to be. There's a range of numbers, but basically it's just whether you want the light to be more yellow or more bright white. It was so hard to tell in the store with the samples, I just kind of went middle of the road. It's amazing much more finished a space looks just after putting in the recessed lights:

We had to pick out lights for the carport. Went with more of a outdoor porch light rather than the fluorescent industrial feel:

Motion sensor floodlights for all four corners of the house, seems a little overkill to me, but whatever: 

Went with a very low profile ceiling light in the mudroom, and round instead of rectangular. I thought it was kind of different, and like half the price of the rectangular one!

You can see how low profile it is better in this picture: 

Some basic ceiling lights for the kids' rooms: 

A ceiling fan for the upstairs master. After much debate - a big part of the reason I was there for two hours, we actually went with one that doesn't have a built in light because already have six recessed cans in that room. But we can add a light kit later if we want to:

Then the fun stuff. The bathroom vanity lights. Though we didn't re-do the tile or the vanity in the upstairs bathrooms, we did update the light fixtures, and chose the same one for all three bathrooms. It's a little different, we may hate it in five years, but for now, I love them. I chose this one because I liked having glass instead of white or frosted, so you can get more light. But I didn't like the ones that were clear glass because it felt like you were just looking at the light bulb. I loved the mottled glass look of this one. It's hard to see what it will look like once it's actually on, since we don't have the electricity hooked up, but hoping it will be gorgeous. This is in our upstairs master bathroom, with the Refuge on the walls, so the color is probably a little off. It's hard to get good pictures in bathrooms with small windows and no electricity: 

This is the same light fixture in the downstairs bathroom, with the new vanity (still in process). It looks a little high because there is no mirror yet. And, again, not great lighting because there are no windows in this room:  

I upload another picture when it's all done with a mirror and everything and looking pretty. So, the last light fixture we had to pick was a pendant for over the kitchen sink. I wasn't thrilled about any of the ones in the store, so I just asked him if the same company who made the bathroom lights had a matching pendant. And they did. 

It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. Since we were only looking in a catalogue to match the bathroom lights, I was envisioning something a lot smaller. But I think we'll get used to it? 

So, now this picture is giving you a sneak preview of Step 21: The KITCHEN!!!

Oh, but before we go there, my favorite thing I picked out at the lighting store. These adorable doorbells: 

NEXT: Step 21: Kitchen