Upon finishing the countertops not a whole lot of work has been done around here. Mostly I have been busy with other things (work and waiting for my credit card balance to move out of the danger zone), I have enjoyed some time lazing around on the couch. While the last month away from rehabbing has been nice, I do feel a bit like a lazy bum, attempting only once to work on something…
As you can see it didn’t go so well, requiring a trip the the hardwares store I was not prepared to make and I was easily deterred.
In the mean time there has been a lot of thought and research that has gone into the kitchen lighting scheme. One of my biggest pet peeves about the condo is that the previous owner did not have the fore-sight to plan for recessed lighting leaving us with a single box smack dab in the middle of the kitchen.
Kitchen Lighting Option A
My original plan was to run track lighting down the center of the kitchen and pull power from an outlet near the peninsula for some pendant lights of the counter. This would give me the option to hang whatever type of pendant my little heart desires. Most likely we would go cheapy now just to get some lights in there and then upgrade to something a bit nicer later if we decided.
I am a bit partial to the IKEA +365 Series any thoughts?
Well this all sounds fine and well, but the enormous draw back being that Chicago code requires conduit, which equals ripping out all the drywall clear up to the location of the lights on the ceiling. I hate drywall dust, I was hoping I was past that stage.
Pros: CHEAP, freedom to choose manufacturers
Cons: drywall dust, bending conduit, taping, mudding
Kitchen Lighting Option B
Option B still starts with the track lighting down the center of the kitchen, however this would be dual circuit track and would T off at the counter allowing me one circuit to switch the pendant lights, and another to switch the kitchen track. This requires no extra conduit running or drywayll mudding, all I do is replace the single switch box with a double switch box.
Here the drawback is cost, the only dual circuit track system I have been able to find is by a company called WAC and is almost prohibitively expensive considering my budget, but they do have a ton of very cool looking fixtures. I think mixing the hand blown glass pendant lights with the clean lines of the chrome spot lights for the track lighting would look really good together.
Pros: no mess, no conduit, flexible lighting options, very sexy fixtures
Cons: EXPENSIVE, stuck with a single manufacturer
What do you think, does anyone have any advise? Anything in between these two extremes? Ultimately I think I am looking for something that has a few more options than Ikea, but not as expensive as WAC. HELP?!
Tagged: +365, drywall, electrical, ikea, kitchen, lighting, pendant light, Real Estate, track lights, WAC