The Journey of Parenthood…

New House Lighting

One of the most important things to me in the new house is lighting. I really, really like the lighting we have in our current house (Mom’s house…our old house…you know what I mean). It was the lighting that gave the whole house the modern feel and helped us when deciding how to decorate 😉 I want to make sure the new house gives off a similar vibe. A lot of stuff in the house I’m okay with going the cheapest on…I mean people really don’t notice half this stuff! I never noticed any of these things in houses until I started building one, ya know? Lighting is where I thought we may have to go over budget. I was worried that the “in budget” stuff would not be our style and I think that the lighting in a home decides the feel of that home. Anyone else agree on that? Or am I just making stuff up?

We knew we had the cruise coming up and we were STRESSED to the maxxxxxx. We wanted to get ALL the decision making out of the way before we left so that way no one would have any questions or need anything from us while we were unreachable. Zach’s super busy with work stuff so it ended up that I would have to do all the picking out when it came to lighting, appliances and flooring. Kinda made me feel panic. I’m seriously indecisive (growing up I’d seek parental approval on every outfit I wore to school each day to make sure it matched and looked just right) and the idea of choosing stuff this important ALL on my own made me cringe.

It ended up that all the deciding stuff got scheduled on the Thur before we left for the cruise. I took Kye out to Mrs. Charlotte’s (and spent some time picking out some winter clothes to bring back with me from storage) then went back home to meet the lighting girl. It was nice because she came out to me! She was very nice yet also a little too outspoken (she didn’t hesitate to tell me that she HATES our counter-tops when I showed them to her!). She did have some great suggestions (I loved her idea for our dining room ceiling and Steve okayed it so it should look great!) but I was nervous that all the lighting pieces she was picking out would be out of budget.

Every time we meet with anyone I stress to them that we want to stay where Steve is comfortable (we don’t have an actual number for anything…Steve just sends us to people and tells us they will know how much he wants to spend) and that we don’t want to spend anything out of our own pockets. This has been an issue as it seems like quite often they go beyond where Steve is comfortable and then we have to re-think things so we don’t have to pay anything. Pretty annoying!!! After meeting with the lighting girl I thought she was for sure one of those people so I was SHOCKED when we got home from the cruise to find out that Steve approved everything! Yay! Here’s the lighting that will be in our new home! (need a reminder of our house plans? Click here!)

Two of these lights hanging down on the front porch

 Out of all the lights we need, I think the light in the front entry is the most important. That HUGE window and the tall ceilings…it needs to make a statement. She assured me that this light will do just that, and I think it’s really modern yet also soft and pretty!

 a matching light for the dining room to flow well with the entry

 There will be two ceiling fans in the living room and I really love these…the area up top lights up too and I think that will look neat when looking down from the balcony upstairs. We’re also going to have this same fan in our master bedroom.

 The lighting girl did know her stuff. She went over to our house and changed some of the spots where the electrician had put spots for lights. She added an extra dome light in our bathroom and made the vanity have a light over each sink instead of just one light across. These will be the lights over our sinks!

 The downstairs guest bathroom just has one sink so this will be the light in there

 And the upstairs one has two sinks so each one will have this light as the vanity light

 All of the bedrooms (other than the master) will have these white fans

 All the random lighting spots (halls, closets, etc) will have the same dome lights we have now. We are actually using two of ours (that we took down when we added fans in the guest rooms) in the new house! Anyway to save some money 😉 Here’s what they look like:

 I’m very excited about the kitchen lighting! This will be the light in the breakfast nook (but in a silver finish)

 there will be two of these at the bar

 And this will be our kitchen light!!! Isn’t it so pretty and different? It’s my favorite light in the whole house!

 on each side of the garage we’ll have these lights

 I’m pretty sure this is probably Zach’s favorite light…we’re going to have two of these fans on the back porch

 but with this fan blade. Beachy huh?

Overall, I’m really happy with all the lighting! We have a few canned lights (I know there is one in our shower and above our tub) but for the most part these are ALL the lights you’ll be seeing when our house is finished. I still can’t quite believe that it was all in budget can you?!? I hope they look as good in person as they did in the catalogs (btw sorry for the crummy scanning job…it was tough to do as those catalogs are HUGE). Appliance picking is up next!

Emily Parker
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