Kitchen Lights

When I'm planning a room (or designing an entire building for that matter), I tend to think about too many elements at once. In my mind, picking lighting fixtures naturally goes with picking cabinet hardware and countertops and flooring and any other finish you can think of. And naturally, heavy online shopping follows all those things. Here are some lights I like and am considering:

Hillcrest Copper Ridge Mini Pendant by Sea Gull Lighting



Sebring Weathered Copper Outdoor Flush Mount by Sea Gull Lighting


Sebring Weathered Copper Mini Pendant by Sea Gull Lighting

And of course the classic schoolhouse light, available as both a flushmount and a pendant:

Lombard fixture from Rejuvenation

There are lots of other really fabulous lights that I adore, but the ones I've shown are much easier on the budget.

More kitchen plans

With a baby on the way and a strong desire to NOT live in our current apartment after she is born, I'm trying to refocus on house stuff. Since our drywall in the bedroom suite is supposed to be taken care of by my extremely generous parents-in-law, I've been thinking about the kitchen. I think I've got the plan worked out pretty precisely.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the location of the doorway on the left wall. There's a bunch of junk lying on the floor and leaning against the walls in this area. Getting an accurate measurement of where the opening occurs would have required a feat of acrobatics I dared not attempt. It's pretty similar to the last plan I posted, but with more careful measurements for accuracy and detail. The biggest difference is the addition of a small butler's pantry/hutch before you enter the kitchen (toward the bottom of the plan). It will have an undercounter fridge and cabinets above. It could serve as a bar, or more likely, a snack center to keep foot traffic out of the cooking area. Here's a perspective shot of the room:


White cabinets, soapstone countertops, hardwood floors. Not everything in the perspective is perfectly accurate, though. It was automatically generated based on the plan, and I was more concerned with getting the layout right than I was about whether the island had furniture-style legs or brackets to support the overhang. I'd also like to add beams to the ceiling, but I'm having a tough time positioning them so they don't interfere with the lighting.

Anyhow, in my renewed nesting-mania, I just purchased a big (26"x16"x11") apron-front soapstone sink off of eBay. It has some staining on the inside of the basin. Fortunately, soapstone is nonporous, so they should come out with little trouble. I'm not sure why they're so expensive, but even the smallest farmhouse sinks cost at least $400, so I thought this one was an absolute steal for $150 (though my mother heartily disagrees). Since standard cabinets won't accept a farmhouse sink as deep as this one, I'll have to build my own cabinet to accommodate it. I may as well go all-out when creating more work for myself, right?