Let There Be Light!

We spent the last two days wandering helplessly through aisles and aisles of lighting fixtures, blinding ourselves every few minutes as we look up into a glaring bulb placed just so. We say to each other "I Nina'd myself" because our sister-in-law, Nina, is working towards completing her interior design diploma, and during the lighting class she kept giving herself welders' flash headaches by looking into the light. Don't do it. But it's really hard to avoid!

We had already been to Robinson Lighting, then we went to Norburn Lighting. Both are kind of pricey, plus anywhere you go where "trades" go, you can never find what the price is unless you ask, because it's differentially priced depending on who you are. Ugh. We had tried Home Depot in Coquitlam and weren't impressed; then we tried the one near Scott Road SkyTrain and they had a much better selection & display of lighting. Someone there said that the North Vancouver one was even better, more upscale. So much for shopping at a chain! Finally, we wandered around IKEA.

The end result is this fixture for our dining room from Home Depot:
I am rather partial to it because while it's quite simple, it still has lots of sparkle thanks to the fluted/scalloped glass bulb "shades" (I don't know what you call them), and it's bright because it uses eight xenon bulbs.

For the kitchen, we've decided to go with track lighting, and have purchased these lights for the same kind of light fixture, but not in a three-head version, just singles, but you get the idea.

We were rather partial to the "ice cube" look of them. And who wouldn't be?

We also ordered a bath tub (YAY!) from Home Depot, which will hopefully be here within the next 3-4 weeks. We are kind of stuck in the bathroom for proceeding without it, so that's why Dave is now dealing with lighting. The next project is installing the track in the kitchen. Oooo! Light in the kitchen. I can hardly wait!! We currently have a couple of fluorescents behind a heavy oak frame (well, actually, we don't currently have that - Dave took that down yesterday). And fluorescents are a pig to work under; anywhere you stand in the kitchen, you're blocking the light to what you're working on. Blech. So I'm looking forward to the new tracks. Dave installed an exhaust fan above the stove a couple of weeks ago, and the two little halogen lights in that do a better job of lighting the kitchen than the dratted fluorescents. Of course, it doesn't help that one of the ballasts has decided to act up, so we had one working and one flickering set of fluorescents for the past month or so. Highly annoying.

We spent some more time at Olympia Tile and drooled over their stock. I brought home a few samples for the backsplash & tub surround & floor. I think we've decided on a matte glass tile for the backsplash & tub surround, but aren't quite decided for the floor. It's fun browsing colours and textures in tiles, and Olympia is a great store with really nice displays that they change fairly regularly.