Lights On!

Written by Jaqui Lividini

This week I’m going to tell you about the continuing saga that has been devising a lighting plan for our beach house.  Because the house was built in 1900 and the electrical was never upgraded, you can just imagine how outdated the system was.   We were in dire need of an entire new plan!  Luckily, we are working with our brilliant designer Charles Riley, and the ever efficient Design Development Team -- they led the way (as per usual).

As with many of our other house renovating adventures, there is a specific town enforced code that must be followed.  Putting that in place was step one of the process.  Once that was established, the next order of business was determining the appropriate light level for each room in the house.  For example, the back of the house faces the ocean and is flooded with early morning eastern light – this area needed a drastically different plan than the bathroom or master bedroom that gets late afternoon southern light.  To make matters even more complicated, when we first started talking about our lighting plan, the house was still on the ground.  So we had to change everything once the house was elevated to its current home in the sky. Commence lighting plan, part two!

Creating a lighting plan poses many unique challenges.  In our case, the first issue was finding fixtures appropriate to an early 20th century home.  Luckily, we were able to find many gorgeous period light fixtures from Rejuvenation Hardware – all available to be customized as well!  Everything we chose was distinctive, while maintaining a cohesive theme throughout the house.  Selecting light fixtures and the appropriate lighting plan for each room was difficult, but Rejuvenation Hardware made it much easier. 

The most challenging room in our lighting plan was by far the porch – because of the fact that it’s outdoors.  Our goal was a room that was both utilitarian and functional while remaining aesthetically in line with the rest of the house. Most importantly, the fixtures had to be rust proof because of salt from the ocean air and surf. 

I think we succeeded in developing a lighting plan that is perfect for this seaside cottage.  In the end, the best light is sunlight reflecting off the ocean - which you can see from every window.  How can you ever go wrong with that?