I work on a contract basis for an electrical engineer/home automation company so when it comes to lighting a house, my bias is a bit to the extreme.  I truly believe that well designed lighting can make or break a house.  Planning from the early stages of design is key.  Once the rooms are laid out, start thinking about how you want each space to get lit. Ambient lighting, task lighting, mood lighting, it all makes a huge difference.  I picked out the majority of my light fixtures early on because I wanted every piece to be set in the budget.  I am not going to compromise on the lighting design in our new house.

My process:  I drew my wish electrical plan and my must electrical plan.  I already know that my double height living room space will have fixtures that retail at almost $1,500.00 a pop x 2.  They may not be hanging on move-in day, but there are J-boxes in place for when we do buy those damn lights.  And we will…  Eventually.  I also accounted for the exact number of can lights for ambient lighting, 35 to be exact.  There are certain lights that are a definite must, like the 6 well lights (3 for the outdoor walkway leading to the front door and 3 for the interior foyer).  These up-lights will be put in from day one.  We will not be saw-cutting through concrete and laying conduit later.  Therefore, they will go in when we pour foundations.

It’s all about pre-planning.  Don’t wait to tackle lighting as an after thought or you will end up with lighting that  looks like a spec home.  Know where your furniture will live, know how you intend each space to be used.  Dream about the feeling you want to convey when you enter each room.  Start looking for deals on your favorite fixtures and buy them on sale.  It’s better to store the box and have it ready to go (having the option to return later of it doesn’t work out) than to pay full price on a piece or God forbid, figure out at crunch time that it’s out of production.  I have a Pinterest board dedicated to lighting fixtures and I obsessively add to that board whenever I see a beauty.

The Kartell Ghost Lamp – Get in my house now!  

The Mooii Random light – I want 2 pronto!

Know your style, shop smart and remember that there are tons of ingenius and innovative ways to beautifully light your home.  LED strips that can change colors or hanging pendant lights in bathrooms…  The possibilities are endless but you have to plan early!

So go through your plans and figure out where all those sconces should go.  Add a diminutive cover on the J-box if you can’t afford the fixture of your dreams right now. It’s a whole lot easier than busting up your walls and pulling conduit later.  After-the-fact lighting is always more expensive.  Trust me on this one.

-K

We submitted our building set to the Building Department last week.  I filled out the form, my husband cut a check for a few thousand, and it passed from my hands, into the hands of a City personnel.  Easy-Peasey.

But, “No turning back now.”

It felt both nerve wracking and relieving at the same time when all was said and done.  I can’t quite put my finger on the exact reason why I felt so nervous.  Maybe because we toiled over the design for so long?  Perhaps because in a way, I feel the plan checker will be judging the decisions we made?  I don’t know.  Probably a combination of many reasons.  Bottom line, it’s in their hands and what get’s approved will be what we build.

I’m hoping for a fairly quick turn around for the 1st round of corrections.  We were told that it has been taking about a month.  3 to 4 weeks.  I feel I can kind of forget about it for a while and stop obsessing about it during this time of waiting.  I can center my heart and mind before delving back into this un-built house of ours once the corrections come back.  The future is uncertain, but optimistic and bright.  I’m going to keep dreaming but first, I’m going to enjoy our family vacation without worrying about the unknown.

-K

 

My favorite countertop specialists are a family owned business.  Delorenzo Marble in Torrance, California.  I can’t sing their praises enough.  They run an honest business, the staff are all friendly, their selection is well, they have everything and most importantly, they are so very competent in their craft.

My go-to surface is engineered quartz.  Do Caesarstone, Silestone and Cambria ring a bell?  Engineered countertops have come a long way and they look almost real.  Of course nothing beats the look of a glorious natural slab.  The veining, sheen and intricacies that mother nature produces obviously can’t be beat.  But I have kids, and many of the clients I work with do too.  Marble is fabulous looking if you never cook, or maintenance and frustrations of correcting issues despite said maintenance is a non-issue…  But if you are like me, engineered is the way to go.  Hands down.  And there are some truly lovely options out there!

I am currently crushing on: Silestone’s Calacatta Gold and Cambria’s Ella & Armitage.

Don’t these imitation marbles look gorgeous?  I will be using one of the white options in my own home for the kitchen and the black one for the master bath countertops.  My waterfall kitchen island will not be real marble but it will look damn good and I will boast about it’s fake-ness ’til the cows come home.

Kitchen countertops especially, should really never be real marble/stone.  They get abused too much.  The constant exposure to juice, soda, fruit, wine and the myriad other acidic substances makes it a constant battle.  And don’t discount toothpaste, mouth wash and even just your local municipal water can spell disaster in bathrooms too.

I always like to tell clients the story of a beautiful house my husband built for a client of his.  We are still family friends despite this incident, thank goodness.  Anyway, single guy, loads of money.  He put honed and polished calacatta caldia in his master bath (countertops, floor to ceiling walls, and in the shower) because the interior designer who shall go unnamed said it would look stunning.

And boy, did it.  It was truly stunning… until he ripped it all out 4 months later because of the etching and staining.  Of course this deterioration of natural product may have a bit to do with the initial installation and sealing, plus substandard cleaning products that were used on it thereafter, but bottom line – I don’t know about you, but my family doesn’t have that kind of money.  What we do have is champagne taste.  I want the look, but not the headache.  Thoroughly treating a natural material with an approved sealer every 6 months, even once a year on top of cleaning it properly on a daily basis makes me cringe.

And those of you who have entertained pouring concrete as a countertop surface… BWAHAHA! Good luck with that!  Besides the fact that attempting poured concrete countertops is so 10 years ago, it’s worse as a material than the softest natural stone! Please consider looking at Caesarstone’s concrete collection.  They look damn good and fabrication is a fraction of the time which always = money savings.  No hairline cracks, no form-building.  Trust me, you can seal a poured concrete countertop in an inch of sealer and it will never perform the way you expect a countertop to perform.  We learned this the hard way when we poured concrete countertops in our rental units way back when…  2 words:  F-ugly. Disaster.

My ideal countertop surface can handle a bread knife directly on it, can withstand a red wine ring with a single Clorox swipe and can come clean of marker and even Sharpie pen with the scrub-a-dub-dub of a magic eraser without leaving an ugly scuff mark. Can natural Calacatta Caldia do that?

Sanity my dear friends.  Go with engineered quartz and Namaste your countertop worries behind.

-K