Its amazing what a difference a little bit of lighting can make to a room. I’m currently having some electrical work done at my home which includes having some pendant lights put up in the bedrooms and living areas. I can’t believe how much of a difference it has made to the feel of the room. Even the use of different colour filament light globes has transformed the living room, giving it a more moody, homely feel. This is in contrast to the stark feeling the “bright white” down lights was giving off. Partly due to the fact there was nothing to counter the intensiveness of the ultra bright LED’s.

One thing that came to my attention is how important placement of fittings are. I have a 4 pendant light over my dining room table. I initially had them dropped 900mm from the ceiling but they just didn’t balanced between the ceiling and table top. I asked the “sparky” to drop it another 100mm…….what a difference. Everything fell into place, all for the sake of 100mm. I had 3 longer pendant lights installed in the bedrooms and once again 50 to 100mm was the difference between it looking odd to looking great. My suggestion is take your time. 2 minutes trying different heights and positions will make a world of difference.

Now for the downside of all this lovely lighting…..cost! Its not cheap. Those lovely light fittings you see in the display homes look lovely for a reason. One, the decorator has painstakingly selected the right fitting for the right area. Two, THEY COST A FORTUNE. Now whilst expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better, with light fittings, it seems to hold true. I remember going through the lighting shop and narrowing down my selections for each area of the house. Needless to say when everything was totalled up I very quickly established a balance between looks and cost. Its amazing how quickly everything adds up once you start adding in the fancy filament globes. I was looking for the before mentioned dining room table light and bedroom pendants thinking the prices for such large lights wasn’t that bad………..until I realised globes were not included in the price. No big deal I thought. $20.00 should cover the cost of all the globes. Try $20-25 EACH and that was with a discount:( Another bit of advice. Some of the filament globes come with a warranty so hang onto your receipt. The globes I bought come with a 3 year warranty. So I’ll defiantly be dragging that out if any of them blow in that time frame.

To say the end result looks brilliant is an understatement but be prepared to spend a fair bit of coin and time getting it right. Try to establish a balance between cost and looks. I could have easily spent another $500-600 on lights but I honestly don’t believe they look $500-$600 better than what I purchased. So do your homework. Check online pricing but be aware its often time consuming and difficult to deal with online stores especially when returns and warranty issues come up. Have fun people.

Cheers

Scott