Lighting Fixtures

Once we finished the lighting design, it was time to pick fixtures. Light fixtures come in all styles and at all price points. They range from your everyday light bulb to pendants which cost thousands. They range from traditional to ultra modern. The choices are overwhelming and, since fixtures are largely a matter of taste, our builder was able to provide less guidance than for other choices.

Fortunately, we didn't have to pick out each of the approximately 100 built-in lights in our home. The majority of the lights fit into categories, and the category requires only a single choice.

Yuval recommended LEDs for our basic can lights. LEDs are expensive compared to other bulb types, but Home Depot offers a reasonably-priced LED can light that uses Cree LEDs. These are some of the best currently available. They provide light at 2700K (a warm white, similar to incandescent bulbs), they are instant on, dimmable, low power, and have a long lifespan (listed at around 50,000 hours).

CFLs, the other obvious low power light option, have similar light quality, but they take a while to warm up, are not dimmable, and have a lifespan closer to 10,000 hours. Despite the higher price, LEDs won out due to instant-on and a long lifespan (not having to change lights in our 10' ceilings will be nice).

Yuval made a number of suggestions for wall scones to go in the stair tower, upstairs landing, and media room. We settled on the third of the linked options because it was a nice balance of style and affordability.

After evaluating the specific recommendations from Yuval and browsing online, we visited a few lighting stores to see fixtures in person. At Home Depot, we spotted a nice brushed steel and glass track light kit that we liked. Since we had quite a few of these in bedrooms and other rooms, we didn't want something too expensive; this kit was perfect.

At one of the store, we found an adjustable arm lamp to use by our bed. We ended up using these same lamps in the master bath over the mirror. We have a fairly thick mirror box built out which would have mostly blocked a standard wall-mount vanity light. The long arms of these lamps allow them to be positioned however we like relative to the mirror. These lamps introduced us to other lights by George Kovacs. We loved a powder vanity light from this brand, and another offering inspired the vanity light in the second bathroom.

Because we are aiming for an energy efficient house, our exterior lights had to be surface mount. Normally the electrical box is set into the house, and the light mounts to that, but any penetration in the wall hurts efficiency. Because of this, we went mostly with the recommendations made by our builder and electrician, including these lights that mount on the exterior of the wall.

We wanted lights on the upper deck to provide soft illumination near the floor. We originally chose a small deck light, but this didn't work! Similar to other outdoor lighting, it uses a 12V electrical current. But these lights would be hardwired into our main 120V circuit. So instead we went with an inset step light in brushed nickel.

We have one light whose only purpose is aesthetic. We have a distinctive stair tower and our home is visible from a main boulevard down the hill. This inspired us to highlight the stair tower with light. After looking at a variety of options from Elemental LED, we chose this wall washer, which will be mounted in the backyard, pointed at the stair tower. It's very bright.

We have three pendants, each of which provides a major focus of it's location. Before construction started, Yuval found a stock clearance of some LZF lamps. We decided the Gea S looked nice, and purchased a large one in cherry. We originally planned it for the dining room. As work progressed, we realized we wanted a long dining table which would overwhelm the circular lamp. We also realized the lamp would compete visually with the stove hood on the kitchen island. We decided to move the Super Gea pendant to the living room.

After much searching, we stumbled upon this linear suspension pendant. We liked the minimal look and thought it would fit well with the linear table and kitchen. However, when we placed an order, it had been discontinued! There was one online store that still seemed to have stock, so we ordered it from them. It was not actually available, but could be specially produced in 9-14 weeks. This was longer than we were comfortable waiting for, so we switched to an alternative linear suspension lamp that was available sooner.



The remaining pendant is for the top of the stair tower. We were having a hard time finding something we liked that would look good above the stairs. But then Erika stumbled upon some inspiration. She decided to crochet a spherical lampshade to cover a simple pendant. First she acquired a rice paper lantern-style shade (made of nylon) to provide the shape for the yarn. Then we chose some bulky yarn in a burgundy similar to our bordeaux paint color. Finally I found a simple and cheap pendant that would provide the socket, cord, and ceiling mount. It has a simple attachment mechanism that will allow us to attach the shade to the pendant.

With those and a few other miscellaneous lights, our lighting is complete. We have good general illumination throughout, along with some distinctive lights to define spaces and add our style to the interior.

Lighting Design

This post will get down to the nitty gritty details of lighting design. It's a complement to the general electrical design we covered in an earlier post.

Lighting design is complex — it is one of the areas where we had the most dependency on our build team for input. There are many issues to balance: ambient lighting competes with the desire to use light to define spaces, legal requirements compete with aesthetic desires, and the need to make decisions early competes with lack of available knowledge of how the space will look with drywall, paint, furniture, etc.

Overview
Yuval and Brent put together a general lighting plan, and we worked with them and our electrician to refine the plan. Although we had a lot of say in the specific fixtures we chose, we mainly followed the lighting plan given by them.

We have a lot of lights in our home. To give an idea, let's compare the three homes we will have lived in in 2012:

Home	Built in lights	Area (sq ft)	Lights per 100 sq ft
Kirkland town home	25	1600	1.6
Bellevue town home	12	1200	1.0
New house	100	2700	3.7

Our new home has over twice the built in light density of other homes. Plus, unlike those houses, where the lighting was placed haphazardly, our new home has lights placed thoughtfully so that they both work well and look good.

Main floor electrical plan
On the main floor, we use can lights for for general illumination. They are also used to highlight some specific features such as the dining room wall (for art), the fireplace, and the kitchen island. Pendants in the dining room, living room, and stairwell will be used to provide focus and as aesthetic elements in their own right.

The detailed electrical plan for the main floor is below. You'll have to click through if you want to see any detail.

Lower floor electrical plan
The circulation areas on the lower floor use can lights. In the media room, we wanted to avoid penetrations that would interfere with soundproofing. Wall sconces provide general, low level illumination in the media room. Track lights provide bright lighting over the equipment closet and over the seating area.

Upstairs electrical plan
We relied heavily on sconces and track lights upstairs to avoid ceiling penetrations — here for heat efficiency rather than sound proofing. The few can lights used are 4" fixtures which are smaller than the standard 6" cans. The bathrooms use these lights to provide good, waterproof illumination, especially over the shower or tub. The bedrooms use track lights for general illumination; the landing uses wall sconces.

Switches
Placing switches is hard when there are 100 lights. The control we want — fine light groupings, three-way switches (which, confusingly, only have two switches controlling the same light) — requires more switches. But more switches make the lights harder to use. The switches also need to be usefully located.

While there are some rules of thumb to switch placement — e.g., no more than three switches per bank, three-way switches both ends of passage ways — many of the detailed decisions were based on advice from our electrician combined with imagining how we would live in the house.

Overall, our switches ended up fairly logical. Switches ended up in places that make sense when you want to use them — at entries and exits to spaces, on accessible walls, etc. We've been using them some as the house works toward completion, and we are slowly learning which ones are which.

Once the design is done, the next step is choosing the specific fixtures to be installed. This will be covered in the next post.

Light and Space

Natural light is best for conservation and hard to beat for light quality, which is why our home has plenty of it. Artificial light is more than a necessary evil, however. It can be used to define space, and the fixtures can be beautiful details.

At the broadest level, light can be used to emphasize the social and functional structure of a home. Light should define how a space is used. Light should be usable.

So often, lighting is just an afterthought. Many spec homes have terrible lighting layout. The single ceiling light in the middle of the room comes to mind immediately. Lights are thrown in haphazardly without thought to how the rooms will be used or whether the light is sufficient. Or, perhaps, the builder does not want to dictate how the room will be used by some unknown future owner, so the light fixtures are added in a way that does not work well for anyone. Perhaps not surprisingly, the rooms with the best lighting design in standard spec homes are those that are the most specialized — kitchens, bathrooms, and dining rooms.


But how do you get good lighting? If we were to take a page from stores and office buildings, the answer would seem to be a large amount of uniform lighting. To some degree, this is a better alternative, but this approach increases functionality by making the space sterile.

Good lighting design must start with how a space will be used and work to support that usage.

Tapestry of Light and Dark (135)

• Problem: In a building with uniform light level, there are few "places" which function as effective settings for human events. This happens because, to a large extent, the places which make effective settings are defined by light.
• Therefore: Create alternating areas of light and dark throughout the building, in such a way that people naturally walk toward the light, whenever they are going to important places: seats, entrances, stairs, passages, places of special beauty, and make other areas darker, to increase the contrast.
• In our home: Light is used to emphasize the main navigational points of our home. Some key examples are:
  

  

  Guiding lights in the entry

  

  Guiding lights on the stairs

  
  People also orient themselves toward the light and away from the darkness. This tendency can be used to define the social spaces in a home which we'll explore more in...

Pools of Light (252)

Dining room pendant

• Problem: Uniform illumination — the sweetheart of the lighting engineers — serves no useful purpose whatsoever. In fact, it destroys the social nature of space, and makes people feel disoriented and unbounded.
• Therefore: Place the lights low, and apart, to form individual pools of light which encompass chairs and tables like bubbles to reinforce the social character of the spaces which they form. Remember that you can't have pools of light without the dark places in between.
• In our home: It's important to realize that this pattern doesn't mean that there should be full darkness between more brightly lit spots — although having darkness as an option provides some interesting opportunities. Our home has a generous amount of ambient lighting.
  

  

  Living room pendant

  But light should define boundaries. It should concentrate attention. And we should make sure that light defines the space in a way that is consistent with how people use it. If a brightly lit area does not correspond to a social or functional space, it will be confusing and less effective than if the light is designed around how the space will be used.
  
  Pools of light may be social or they may be used to provide task lighting. We have both in our home. We have task lighting in the kitchen, the bathrooms, and the dressing room. In the dining room and living room, the pendants define social spaces. These are not the only lights that support this pattern, but they are some of the key ones.
  

Filtered Light (238)

Filtered light in the powder room

• Problem: Light filtered through leaves, or tracery, is wonderful. But why? ... Direct light coming from a point source casts strong shadows, resulting in harsh images with strong contrasts. ... These contrasts and hard boundaries are unpleasant — objects appear to have a hard character, and our eyes, unable to adjust to the contrast, cannot pick up the details.
• Therefore: For all these reasons, we have a natural desire to diffuse light with lamp shades or indirect lighting, so that the images created by the light will be "softer," that is, that the boundaries perceived are not sharp, there is less contrast, fewer shadows, and the details are easier to see.
• In our home: (I cheated a little with the problem statement and therefore. This pattern is primarily about light filtered through windows, but I chose some key points about general light diffusion.)
  
  One of the main ways we keep light diffuse is by having a large number of lights to provide ambient lighting. This provides a general background level of light which the pools of light shape further. The light fixtures themselves also have shades to diffuse light.

Warm Colors (250)

• Problem: The greens and greys of hospitals and office corridors are depressing and cold. Natural wood, sunlight, bright colors are warm. In some ways, the warmth of the colors in a room makes a great deal of difference between comfort and discomfort.
• Therefore: Choose surface colors which, together with the color of the natural light, reflected light, and artificial lights, create a warm light in the rooms.
• In our home: This pattern does not say that every surface in the house must be between red and yellow. This is a good thing, since we have a rather large teal wall in our home. However, the overall quality of the light should be warm.
  
  We accomplish this partly through the materials we use — that teal wall is next to a warm floor in white oak. We also accomplish this through warm light. LED lights were a particular concern here since they often give off light that is cooler than that from incandescent bulbs. We went with EcoSmart LED lights in soft white. They give a warm light quality, very similar to incandescent lights.

In the next two posts, we'll go over the details of our lighting design and then spend some time discussing the light fixtures we chose.