Lights and lighting

There have been quite a few days where I've cursed the fact that there are thousands of lights to choose from, and all the ones we liked were in the UK and US. Despite spending day, hours and weeks looking at lights in Australia we found that the majority for designed for modern homes and didn't capture the look we were going for - basically a good quality, simply designed light that would suit the period features of the house, but not be excessively ornate or brass/gold in colour. Choosing lights is not that easy - particularly when the room doesn't exist yet! We are particularly happy with the pendant lights and the bathroom wall lights as we weren't sure how they would look in the space but hopefully you'll agree, they look pretty schmick! A big thank you to our electrician, Shaun from EzyAs Electrical, who went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the spacing was exact and who tirelessly responded in great detail to our emails and phone calls about so many electrical questions (we were abroad when he was doing the installation). My advice, get a good electrician who is as pedantic as you are. It really helps!

Here is some more information on our lights and light switches:

Downlights:  Installing ceiling fans meant pendant lights were not really suitable for the bedrooms so we chose recessed down lights that would hopefully 'disappear' into the ceiling. We also wanted to try and avoid the 'startled animal' effect of having very bright modern down lights that would limit the diminish the capacity for mood lighting and ability to highlight shadows from the high ceilings. Fortunately, we had a friend who was former electrician, now electrical engineer, with a panache for lights to guide us through the overwhelming downlight options available. On his advice, we chose recessed lights with a 60 degree beam angle that would create more shadows and titled down lights to match. Thanks Grant - they look great!

Hallway and Stairwell lights:  The hallway and the stairwell are very traditional areas of the house full of period features. Our objective was thus to find pendant lights that were sympathetic to the era of the house and would complement the period features. That sounds easy enough in principle. In practice, a lot of the traditional lights were too ornate, were of relatively poor quality or were in finishes (e.g. antique brass) that wouldn't match with the chrome deco door knobs we had already selected. After a great deal of online searching into styles available, we ended up selecting hallway lights that were made from a milk / opaline style glass that had a simple deco style pattern - very similar to the door knob backing plates. As the stairwell light would be in relatively close proximity to the hallway lights we selected a light made from the same type of glass but chose a more dramatic deco skyscraper style light. While the stairwell is some 4.5m above the landing, there was plenty of space for a large pendant, however, we decided that this would be a great wall for a large painting etc so we didn't want to cover up too much of the wall. The skylight also limited the positioning of the light so it had to sit directly above the end of the balustrade above the landing. Chrome rods and galleries were the obvious choice to match in with the chrome light switches, window and door fixtures etc.

Dining Room pendant lights:  The dining room has two pendant lights that will hang directly over the dining table and no downlights (mood lighting is better when eating in my humble opinion!). We wanted these lights to be more formal, in order to reflect the use of that space, and designate it as a separate eating area from the nearby kitchen bench. We also wanted to tie back in with the hallway and stairwell lights, so we chose another deco influenced style of light with a white dish held in place by three chrome "arms". Hmmm hard to describe, I'd refer to the attached pictures. Hopefully it will give the dining room some simple grandeur above a large dining table and floor lamps in the corners of the room.

Kitchen pendant lights: Seeing as the majority of people spend a great deal of their family time around a kitchen bench, we wanted to get 'schmick' lights that would blend in with the era of the other lights, but be a bit more funky. After choosing vintage steeped glass lights, a colossal stuff around with the supplier meant that we had to cancel this order and choose lights in one night in order to have them delivered in time for the electrician to do his final fit out. Talk about pressure! In the end we chose vintage / industrial style chrome bell shaped pendants that would provide directed lighting to the timber bench top (the down lights would provide additional lighting if necessary). Since nearly everything in the kitchen is white with chrome drawer handles, chrome was the obvious choice. That said, the same light came with a white bell body with chrome finishings, and we had a long night deliberating the pro's and con's of each colour option. In the end we decided there was already enough white in the house and chrome would help show off the kitchen and match the other chrome finishes throughout the house.

Bathroom / Dressing Room Wall lights: My husband did a quick internet search and found the style of light he loved. A great deal of time was subsequently spent trying to find a replica of this style of tubular deco light in Australia. It wasn't possible. In the end we rang the only British supplier of the light we could find (thank you Pinterest), who's website said the light was no longer in stock, and took the decision to import six lights. British lights have the same voltage and hertz as Australian lights but do have to meet Australian standards and i'd strongly recommend you check that the light does meet Australian standards, and check with your electrician, before you buy. Fortunately ours did, and we now have 6 lovely lights in the downstairs / main bathroom (on either side of the mirror above the pedestal sinks) and the dressing room (on either side of the doorway). There was insufficient room to install the tubular lights on either side of the ensuite mirror and allow unaided access to the built in niche shelves so we had to choose an over mirror style light. Again this was not easy to find a deco style light and I think we'll probably end up replacing it one day with another light from the UK when we aren't so pressed for time.

Ceiling Fans: What can I say, I found a gorgeous chrome fan I still hope to install one day but the prohibitive cost meant that simple white ceiling fans made from plastic (the house is still close enough to the beach to mean that rust build up was possible) were the right option for now. We really just wanted fans that would blend into the ceiling as much as possible while cooling the room without the use of air conditioners.

Outdoor lights: Another mission in light finding and supplier issues, on our third attempt at procuring an outdoor light we both liked that would match the house and account for the coastal location, we settled upon a lovely and simple french (?) style galvanised gooseneck barn light that was vintage in era yet simple.

Sensor lights: We installed three sets of sensor lights and really just chose lights we hoped would blend into the wall as much as possible. Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of options to choose so we did the best we could! Enough said.

Garden lights: The house is on a gradient of about 4m from the top NW corner to the bottom SE corner so retaining walls were necessary as part of the house build and the landscaping. The feature retaining wall in the garden has dark charcoal grey 'bricks' that have a formal stairway down from the top garden to the lower (or sunken style garden as we call it) garden and lawn areas. We decided to put lighting in before the backfill covered up the fence, and had the option of either bollard, post or wall lights. In the end we went with wall lights (to sit on either side of the steps) that were made from 316 marine grade stainless steel (to factor in the coastal weather conditions). This gave us more options with regards to landscaping at the top of the stairs, and the look of the bunker lights tied in with the outdoor lights, decking and the beach house style garden.

Lightswitches: I love our light switches! If it is possible to be seduced by a lightswitch then head over heels in love with mine. I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I look at the chrome switch on the white timber gang that makes me smile :) While the house had a couple of brown bakelite switches left, given that all other trimmings in the house were chrome it seemed worth the extra expense to upgrade and get chrome lightswitches that were in the same style as the original bakelite switches. That said, we had to draw the line somewhere so we went with modern GPO's (power sockets) and traditional light switches - except in a two bathrooms where insufficient space meant the old and new would be in very close proximity and we decided that it would look much better with the traditional socket as well. One day we might upgrade some more of the GPO's but the downside of the traditional ones is that you need a separate switch to activate the power socket which takes up a lot of space. It is also protrudes quite a way off the wall - something to keep in mind if you want the socket 'tucked' away.

Phew...no more lights to choose! Not for awhile anyway!

Lighting details are as follows:

• Downlights: Domus Deep 10W Deepset Warm White LED downlights 3000K (Supplier: Ozlighting)
• Downlights (tilted): Domus 13W Deco Satin White Tilt LED downlight (Supplier: Electrician)
• Hallway lights: Rockafella Shade with cosmopolitan rod set (Supplier: Restoration Station, Brisbane)
• Stairwell light: Rockafella Shade with cosmopolitan rod set (Supplier: Restoration Station)
• Dining Room pendant lights: Tomanx light chain suspension with Bernie Shade (Supplier: Restoration Station)
• Kitchen Pendant lights: Gelos Classic Chrome pendant light (Supplier: SheLights)
• Bathroom Wall / Dressing room lights: 
• Ceiling Fans: Futura 122cm fans in white (Supplier: Beacon Lighting)
• Outdoor lights: Mercator - Elly 1 light exterior wall bracket galvanised (Supplier: Ozlighting)
• Sensor lights: (Suppliers: Beacon lighting and Ozlighting)
• Garden lights: Cougar Bermuda bunker grill wall light stainless steel 316 (Supplier: Ozlighting)
• Lightswitches: Traditional Hardware, Chrome Traditional Single light switch and chrome traditional single power point with a white socket (Supplier: Finlaysons). Note you can also get the socket in bakelite brown but I think the white looks smarter.
• Timber gangs: Traditional Hardware, Traditional profile pine gangs that we painted Dulux Vivid White (Supplier: Finlaysons)

Here are a few photos so you can see what the light looked like in the shop and what it looked like installed. We still have a few finishing touches to go (e.g. the hallway light shades will be installed once the painters are finished and the ladders aren't in danger of breaking them) but we're very happy! I'll put up the final pictures shortly.

Original dining room light

Original hallway light bulb feature!

Light feature?

Dining room lights in the shop!

Our substitute ensuite mirror light. One day we will replace with the one we really wanted that can only be found in the UK!

Hallway light

Stairwell light

Recessed down lights in place

Bathroom light switches and power socket

Upstairs bathroom lights

Hallway lights

Stairwell light