Down a Lighting Rabbit Hole

When we started two months back, creating a lighting plan for our house seemed simple.  With a sprinkling of recessed halogen cans and a pendant over the dining table, our first draft was complete - an even wash of mostly overhead light from around 100 fixtures. How fantastic were we.

(Un)fortunately, a trip to our favorite architecture bookstore corrupted our innocence.  Works such as Lighting by Design told a tale of complexity that spun our heads.

After much reading, we realized our plan was basically crap and we needed to start over.  This time around we calculated our lumens, created interest in the shadows and struck a good balance between ambient, task, accent, and decorative lights. We felt good again.

Next task - find the fixtures to fill each spot in the plan.  Hitting the road, we found a lot to like.  Highlights included a gorgeous green pendant from Eurofase ($1300 US)

along with a wall sconce ($450 US).

After our third lighting store, reality was starting to set in.  Our plan had 8 to 10 fixtures per room.  At the rate we were going, our entire budget would be blown on the living room alone.

Back to the drawing board.  Our new task - assume the lights we buy will be cheap and ugly, and then figure out a way to hide every single one of them.

After a week of lighting hide and seek, our new best friend was LED rope light.  As well as being super energy efficient, you can buy 150 feet of it for under $500.  By running it along ventilation shafts and above rafters, we were able to remove nearly all the expensive fixtures.

We also decided to cut square holes in the concrete walls of our house and tuck lights up into the cavities (see below).  As they will be completely hidden, we can use unsightly compact fluorescent bulbs.

After two months down the lighting rabbit hole, we have finally done it.  A well-illuminated house for around $1000 worth of fixtures.  This should give us a little money to spare for a pendant or two - a pretty green one perhaps.