Archive for the ‘lighting’ Category

Exterior Light

Friday, June 18th, 2010

If you somehow haven’t noticed, I really like The Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. So, when it came time to figure out some exterior lighting for the house I deferred to The Ace and the industrial lights installed outside their room doors. I loved the simplicity of the design, the industrial quality and the low, low price. Easy to source, we just went to Home Depot and bought a set of four.

Vapor Tight!

When we bought the Brick House there were no exterior lights installed, just a bunch of empty holes with cables strung through. About a year ago we tried to install some exterior lights and went TOTALLY CRAZY. The wiring was so funky that the lights would just stay on or sometimes one would shut off and two would go on and after about a week of fiddling with it we gave up. It was stupid and we were stupid.

Now that most of the painting is done (we still have a little more to go – it’s never going to end) we started talking again about the stupid exterior lights. Knowing that we were not qualified to deal with this problem we talked our electrician buddy Chris to come out and try and figure out what the hell was going on.

Installing them was pretty easy and figuring out what was wrong with the wiring was also pretty easy for Electrician Chris. I guess they were wired for Photocells or something. Whatever. We are dumb.

We did end up adding an extra light to the corner above the patio since the whole side yard is pitch black at night. Electro Chris tied this light into the other garage lights like magic! Custom shit.

I know the garage doors are all atrocious and the patio is a mess, but look, we have lights. After two and a half years of living in the dark, we have exterior light! This is a big deal. Go 2010 Year of The Exterior. GO.

We don’t have to stumble around in the dark to take out the trash anymore. Huge achievement.

Yep. They work best at night.

Kitchen Light

Monday, June 14th, 2010

We’ve been through a lot of kitchen lights at this house. This new addition makes number four installed in the kitchen since we moved in a few years back. Here and here are some of the previous incarnations.

We procured this bad boy off some friends of The Brick House (thanks guys!) who were looking to deaccession some of their mid century finds at the big sale. I *begrudgingly, of course* took it off their hands and installed it immediately. LOVE, love, love it.

Now we need another pair of chairs for our kitchen breakfast bar since I sold our faux bamboo ones.

I really want a pair of FDB Møbler chairs – just like Kitka. Or possibly something more Hans Wegner looking. I don’t know…I can’t decide. So many chairs out there to love, so little kitchen space available.

At Night

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

The slats look really beautiful at night (like a lantern) and also create privacy for the front of the house. Our street (as well as every nearby street) lacks street lights and it gets hella dark around these parts.

I think the next big project (after we paint the house) will have to be fixing that front door up. Oh, I cannot express how badly I want to tear off that screen door, patch the giant holes on the the front door, get new entry hardware and paint that SOB shiny black. CANNOT WAIT. Except for funds need to replenish a bit…so we got to wait for that…

Also, I think we need to start considering outdoor and landscape lighting. We have about zero as of now and it’s scary dark! I want some lights.