Bright Ideas

This weekend, Niels and I popped into a few lighting stores. We've been looking casually, but since our lighting choices will need to be made soon, I thought I'd post a few thoughts we have on the topic.

Bedrooms and Great Room:
This is easy. We'll do ceiling fans with lights in most of the bedrooms and the great room. With the ICF walls, our new house will not fluctuate in temperature as much as a stick built home. We should be able to reduce our air conditioner use considerably by simply circulating the air. Something like this will do nicely:

60" Edge Possini Euro Design Ceiling Fan, a nice big energy efficient fan from Lamps Plus. Also available in 52".

Our Son's Room:

We have a toddler who loves all things that go: planes, trains and automobiles. As a general rule, we try to avoid brands with him, although he does have a disproportionately high number of Thomas trains. In his room, we're learning toward a generic transportation theme, with the thematic details coming from decals and accessories that can be removed. 

However, we saw this fan at The Great Indoors and he loved it. 

Low Profile IV Plus with Airplane Blades 42"

We could buy any energy-efficient fan we'd like, and then replace the blades, which are sold separately. 

Cute airplane blades from the Hunter Sweet Pea collection.

We could also do this transportation/sport combo. I'm not sure if it's two sets, or reversible  or...

Back Porch:

I'm not nearly the outdoorsy girl I should be, but with the nice big backyard we'll have in the new house, I know I need to get out more so that our son gets out more. We saw a covered back porch in a model a few months back, and quickly revised our plans for the original screened porch to the new bigger covered porch with ceiling fans! (I realize this is a slight tangent from the topic of lights, but we'll have lights on the ceiling fans).

I won't mind being outside with these bad boys!

This is the back porch that inspired me, and I might add, was one of my more brilliant ideas with the house. 

View from under the porch. 

This is very close to the size and look of our back porch We'll have sliders off the dinette, and then a nice long covered porch. Now, one fan or two?

Dining Room:

This room will elicit a bit more discussion between Niels and I. He actually shipped the dining room fixture from his house in Belgium when he moved to the States six years ago. It's been packed nice and snug in a box since then, and is currently packed nice and snug with our packed boxes. I haven't seen even a photo of it. But I do know Niels' style and I love the cost of free. So, when the time comes, we'll take it to a lighting store, unpack it, and we don't hate it, will see about getting it re-wired for American use. 

However, I have fallen in over with this fun fixture, made of capiz shells:

Large rectangle hanging capiz pendant from West Elm.

Isn't it pretty!?!

The practical side of me will probably win out because we're focusing our build money on the things that can't easily be changed later. But, who knows...

***update***
My sweet hubby just reminded me that I left out the office, which, for obvious reasons, will not have a ceiling fan. So...it looks like I can get my pretty capiz shell pendant after all. Let the bargain hunting begin!

Kitchen:

In addition to a few can lights, lights under and above our cabinets, and something in the pantry (I still need to think about that). We'll have three pendants over the outside island. 

My first wish was something like this to go with the cork floors:

Alentejo Square Pendant by Forecast Lighting.

Sadly, they cost way more than I can rationalize spending. Unless some helpful soul can find them for $50 or less... (Oooh! I did find this round one for $57.)Something like this is really nice, and much better on the budget at $35/each.

Carnom Margo One in Brushed Pewter

This one adds some color to our transitional kitchen:

Green Cirrus Wishes Shade by Forecast.

This is an eco-friendly choice, not bad at $60/each:

Minka-Lavery Brushed Nickel Energy Star Mini-Pendant

Fun light from a open house this weekend.

Another fun light from a open house this weekend.

In all honesty, what we'll probably do with pendants is just find something energy efficient on the contemporary side and call it good. There are so many fun pendants out there, but I just can't justify a lot on little lights when when inexpensive ones are just as practical.

Foyer and Hallways:

We've only started looking at these lights.  A few that have caught our eye:

  

Bathroom Lights:

I fell in love with resin panels after seeing them on HGTV. I wanted to use them for shower doors. Still in negotiations about that. If we did, these would be really cool bathroom lights!

And of course, we want to take advantage of the sun on the second floor with a few of these solar tubes: