Hi, my honeys! Welcome to week 3 of the One Room Challenge! This week is all about upgrading our lighting in our kitchen! I'll show off the gorgeous pendants we picked out as well as offer some tips on lighting for your kitchen! I might have bare drywall on the walls, exposed outlets, and a mess of boxes in the kitchen, but installing the new pendant lights has allowed me to start to see my vision for the Calm Chateau kitchen come to life!
As a featured designer in the Fall One Room Challenge, I had the amazing opportunity to work with a truly amazing lighting brand, Crystorama! They make such special lights for all the spaces in your home! Their lighting is such high quality. Everything is so well made, and the designs are just so unique. You really can make such a statement in your home with their designer quality lighting. It was actually quite hard to choose my pendants from their selection, because I loved so many of them! Here's a few that I loved but didn't end up getting:
Ultimately, I decided on their Fulton pendants in the Antique Gold finish! They also come in black and polished nickel too! I loved the caged lampshade look, and I thought they would make a perfect statement in our kitchen! They are quite oversized at 20" wide by 18.15" high, but I felt they would be a great way to really define the kitchen space in our open concept main floor. The finish is quite beautiful and bright, and I love how easy they were to assemble and install. We chose the smallest rod to make sure they were hung high enough for lots of head room when you're seated at the peninsula and to preserve sight lines into the kitchen from the living room. Additionally, I grabbed their 2-light Flush Mount Fulton light for my hallway space, which I will show y'all in the coming weeks!
Initially, I had thought about just using two of the pendants and closing up the middle electrical box, but when we went to install the lights we realized we would have had to move the left electrical box inward causing holes to repair in our ceiling. It would have been a lot of extra work that just wasn't necessary in my opinion. I'm sure some people might think my pendants are too oversized, but I truly think they work in my space. I wanted the light fixtures to make a huge statement because the rest of the kitchen design is quite simple.
Tips for lighting:
1) Consider the impact it will have on your space. If your space is very simple, go for a more funky, bold style light to add some character and serve as a focal point in your room. If your space already has a lot going on, consider adding a more streamlined light fixture.
2) Choose the correct bulbs for your space! I always go with dimmable LED bulbs that are more warm toned. I feel that warm lighting in a home adds such a cozy factor to your spaces, and having dimmable bulbs and a switch will allow you to adjust the lighting to your comfort or the occasion. Warm light is much easier on your eyes, too. Blue light can be harmful to your eyes and make you more prone to headaches. For someone like me with chronic migraines, warm light is always the way to go!
3) Get the size right for your lights. I often see builder grade homes with the tiniest pendant lights in the kitchen. I think adding a few larger pendants will bring some drama to your space and draw your eye away from the industrial look of bulky appliances. One easy way to make your home look more expensive is to have oversized items in your home. Since lighting takes up no floor space, this is a great option for adding something oversized.
4) Choose the right finish! Gone are the days of matchy-matchy hardware and lighting. You can mix metals in your home so long as they each speak to the overall look of your space. In our kitchen, I chose to mix the gorgeous brass tone of my Crystorama pendants and cabinet hardware with a matte black tone on my faucet and pot filler. This breaks up the tones in the space, and it adds a ton of interest. Try to mix finish styles if you can, though. If your cabinet hardware is a shiny, polished brass, mix in another color tone in a brushed or matte finish.
5) Hire a professional if you need to. It's okay if you need to call in the pros on installing new lights! Electrical is one of those things that can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. Sure, anyone can learn to swap out light fixtures, but if you're ever in doubt, just hire a qualified electrician to make sure your lights are installed properly and safely.
And now, let me show y'all my gorgeous Crystorama Fulton pendant lights in our kitchen! I just adore how they turned out, and I can't wait to see my space come together with these lights as a main focal point.
I want to thank Crystorama for sponsoring me for the One Room Challenge, and I'm just so thrilled to have such high quality pendants in our kitchen. I can see past the unfinished kitchen and envision this finished space, and I'm just so pumped! Make sure to come back here next week to see my wall tile reveal! I think you're really going to love it!
My ORC Sponsors:
Calico | Crystorama | Speakman | Kelly Moore Paint | Loloi | Minted | Parker Gwen | MR Direct | Tile Bar |