Island Lights

Kitchen lights. I was having a hard time with choosing them. Everything in the stores was gross and I didn't know what I was going to do. But at that time, it was a long way off from needing them.

Then my sister called to say that she had driven by the second hand shop we all like in her town and had seen a nice hanging lamp in the window. She said it was white with orange and yellow fruit slices. Not exactly an encouraging description, but I trust her and she liked it, so I figured I would like it. And if I didn't, well, I didn't have to hang it.

A few weeks later she called and mentioned she hadn't done anything about the lamp. Should she check if it was still available? I said sure.

So a week later she goes to the store and finds it still hanging in the window. It had a sold sign on it. Oh no! But she looked at it closely and the sold sign had an old "hold by" date on it. So she went and asked at the counter and one of the women there happened to know the lady it was being held for. They called her up and no, she didn't want the lamp anymore. She just hadn't called them. Snap! That was Judy buying my lamp. (Thank you, unknown lady, for saving the lamp for me from all the other buyers who didn't ask about the sold sign.)

The lamp is lovely and will be great hanging above the kitchen table, and you will get to see it when Troy hangs it (soon). This is all a back story for the lights that are now mounted above the island.

My mom delivered the lamp from my sister's on one of her visits, and it happened that the next day Mom and I were driving somewhere and stopped at a yard sale. Mom found a few things, and then I saw two lamps like this:

They don't really match the lamp Mom just delivered, but they have the same sort of swirls and I thought they would look good together. There was no price marked and the person there seemed at a loss when I asked for the price. I suggested $5 for the pair, and they took it.

Of course, I couldn't use the lamps in their worn and harvest-gold condition. I took them apart,

and repainted all the metal parts a bright yellow.

Let me just comment here that spray painting and I don't really get along. All the fix-it shows and blogs talk about spray painting like it is the easiest thing in the world; such a simple transformation, etc, etc. Well, I don't know what my problem is, but I do not find it easy and simple. But anyway, I got it done and it's good enough for something hanging up at the ceiling.

Troy got them installed a couple weeks ago and put them on a three-way switch so we can control them from either main entrance to the room.

We have found that having just these two lights on is the perfect amount of light for general use. The other overhead lights are for when we're setting up the operating room (ha ha).

At some point in the process I started to get really worried that the lights were not going to look good in the room, and definitely weren't going to look good with the other ceiling lights. But once they were up, I liked them. It'll be even better when the other light is up. (It goes without saying that it will be even better when the ceiling is done, but that will be a long while yet.)

Let There Be Lights

Hope you don't think the title is blasphemous, but I couldn't resist.

Troy has been working steadily and yesterday we had six overhead lights connected to two switches with power. Very exciting.

We've been living with the under cabinet lighting and the lights above the stove and sink. Compared to that, the six overhead lights seem like stage lighting!

I spent a lot of time last weekend looking at the ceiling and drawing big X's where I thought the lights should go. I did some measuring and eye balling and exercised a bunch of "TLAR" (That Looks About Right).

One pendant light was hung in the space/hallway right beside the fridge. If there wasn't a light right there, it was going to be a dark corner.

The other two were centered in the east half of the main room, balanced between the lights above the island and above the table.

Turns out they both came real close to lining up with the end lights in the west half of the room, so I just made them line up.

I came home late on Wednesday but just in time for Troy to offer me the privilege of flipping the switch for the first time. I deferred to him since he had been working so hard on it.

He ran downstairs to flip the breaker on and then ran upstairs and hit the switch. The lights came on...then off. Turns out he had a faulty switch!! It would work only when your finger held it in place. Once you let go, it popped out a little bit and the lights would go off. Grrr. (That's exactly what Troy said. That's all I'm admitting.) He tried switching it out for another switch but when that didn't work, he packed it in for the night.

By Friday he had bought some switches as reinforcements and got it all put back together again. And it worked. Sweet.

I think you can see in the pictures that Troy had to build little "hangers" for all the light boxes since we will be putting in a suspended ceiling. I have no idea how the spacing will work with the panels, and in fact have no idea even what size the panels will be! Troy tells me we will be able to adjust the boxes by up to two inches or so, and I just have to hope that will be enough!

Today's Report

Someone accused me today of not updating the blog enough. She wanted to see all the progress in the kitchen.

I asked, "What progress?"

We really have not done a lot the last couple weeks. I have spent them cleaning out rooms and closets and reorganizing since the fridge moved. I'm not sure the house has ever looked this good. (But please remember, I have set a pretty low bar.)

I even got one more box of random seldom-used stuff unpacked and stowed in the kitchen yesterday.

I've also been cooking and baking lately as I hosted friends for the Superbowl (thank you again, Giants) and had some friends for brunch yesterday. Lots of leftovers for dinners...

But back to the kitchen, Troy got up the new lights in the west part of the kitchen on Friday. It was a long tedious process of overhead work, but he pushed through and got it done.

We had a time looking for lights. Troy had some specific requirements (nothing recessed and the shade had to be clear glass so none of the light would be blocked) and I had a hard time finding anything, let alone something I liked. In the end perseverance won out and I thought I found something I liked. But I couldn't really be sure until I had them up.

My first reaction to them was that I liked them very much. So that's good. Next up is to figure out where six light fixtures need to go in the east half of the kitchen. Yes, six. This is why my lighting worries are not over.

Today I started looking at the tiling on the west wall. I laid it all out on the counter again to make sure I didn't end up with an inch on one end or bad cuts around the outlets. Everything came out pretty good, so I'm relieved about that.

I didn't take very good overall pictures, but I took plenty of detailed ones so I wouldn't have to do it all again next time. I also took notes and marked the back of the tiles so I would know where they go. Let's hope it's enough.

I didn't have time or energy to get anything on the wall today, but next time I'll be set to go...