One Room Design Challenge Week 07: Shedding Light On It.
In the beginning of the Spring, we launched a blog regarding a furnishing & styling project for our dining room and work space for the One Room Challenge as guest participants. The One Room Challenge (ORC) is an online platform to showcase designers, and a behind the scenes view of them completing a room within 8 weekly posts. The steps in our design process are always at play, especially when it is for ourselves because there are way more twists and turns to navigate (with creatives who know all the options!) In this case it is not only changing the use of a room but also about working in a design style we appreciate, the Memphis Design Movement. There is also one small hitch, heirlooms, 4 matching 200 year old chairs in a Jacobean Revival style.
Last week we finalised our choice of dining table, which is the largest piece of furniture in the room, and it is typically the largest investment that a client makes in a dining space. We showcased our D.O.M.A. tip list to break down your space, goals, and capacity when considering dining table options. This week’s article features decorative lighting as our next consideration in the seventh of eight weekly posts with our reveal coming up next week.
Sometimes designers make the worst clients and I am the first to admit my visual and design needs have put us both in the situation you are about to read.
Without Light there is only darkness
Lighting is one of the 7 Elements of Interior Design with the rest being space, line, form, colour, texture and pattern. Occupiable spaces are illuminated with six different layers of light and they are general (ambient), overhead task, wall-mounted, indirect, decorative and accent. Think of these as different ways to apply lighting in a space and not only will the location of each fixture impact the feel of the space, but a fundamental truth remains that without light we simply can not see colour.
Planning lighting can be very straight forward or extremely complex, beautiful or downright ugly, and highly decorative or simply functional - these pendulums swings in any direction that they need to. For our project, we are working within the existing electrical rough-ins that we have available. In fact, when our unit was first constructed in 1910, lighting and electrical were added AFTER the ship lath and plaster walls and in a very limited amperage of service. The rough-in locations have not changed since and the wiring was replaced in all units within our building sometime in the 40’s or 50’s, but with only 60 AMPS of service in 2 circuits available (current day standards are a minimum of 240 AMPS with dedicated circuits), meaning all electrical items we use MUST be LED lighting and low voltage. Hair dryers are actually a big issue.
selecting the best lighting fixtures
Narrowing down lighting fixture options in the design world is akin to asking a bumble bee what their favourite flower is. It can be an impossible decision when you know luxurious and beautiful options as well as practical and functional (there’s that pendulum swinging again.) I sourced three chandeliers for the dining room and proposed them to Corey. Each of the three of my options contain elements of our theme but what we are looking for is some quirky Memphis modernism mixed with metal and some curves. Here are the options: 1.) Willow, 2.) Renee and 3.) Coco
With so many options out there it can feel like an obsession. Since all three fixture options I proposed were all under the Hudson Valley Lighting brand Mitzi I approached them as a sponsor for our blog (actually, they are also a leading sponsor of the One Room Challenge). The chandeliers are available in an aged brass finish with contrasting black elements but we would like to use the warmth of gold already existing in our space to draw the eye to different parts of the room. Each of these fixtures will provide controlled lighting conditions that we did not have before. Yet decisions need to be made for an LED light fixture that embodies a Memphis twist to our vision for the space - So the Coco is our winner-winner-chicken-dinner.
Yes we did end up choosing a fixture that is due to ship out at the end of June but it was because we both agreed that it is worth the wait and there was no alternative once we envisioned it for the space.
Why work with a sponsor?
As design professionals we have a long tenure of working with sponsors like BLANCO and DXV by American Standard, it makes it easy for us to approach companies like Hudson Valley Lighting. We understand their investment in a quality product with design forward thinking, certification, testing data, and design standards. All of these considerations are how we evaluate a product before we even recommend it to a client, it can not only be about just a look. There are times when we are able to use our connections with our Client’s in their projects too - please do not misunderstand that this is something we perform exclusively for ourselves - but we LOVE the entire Mitzi line because it embodies all the new fresh styles and aesthetics that are nostalgic and timeliness. A quality brand will always be worth the delay but procurement (or purchasing) has become even more important in the past two years of the COVID-19 Global Pandemic, continued supply chain issues, and changing federal trade policies. Our roles are not just to select frilly accessories for our projects, we also sometimes anticipate issues of supply and changes in price. These affect whether your materials arrive on time for the project. Their delay will often times affect the implementation of the rest of your project and its ability to meet deadlines to finish efficiently. We advise on proposed timelines to make sure that they are achievable.
IT’S WORTH THE WAIT FOR THE REVEAL
Other lighting we are incorporating into the the space will be a wall-hung illuminated glass sculpture by the artist Wayne Harjula and two illuminated pedestals for more glass art we are keen to display. Unfortunately, readers will need to patiently wait for the reveal because although we have a good space plan and concept, sometimes we need to have the physical objects first before we can best convey our ideas and style.
Stay tuned.
Articles in this series
