Lighting! Also fittingly known as the jewelry of your home. Lighting can make a space look beautiful, modern, glam, romantic, outdated, rustic, relaxing… you name it! In this post, I’m sharing my experience selecting the lighting for our new home, why we ordered through a local lighting company, and our final selections!
Because we are building a house, we had the unusual task of choosing all of our lighting at once. This was a bit daunting, but I think the end result will (hopefully) create a cohesive flow throughout our home. One of the things I love about our builder is that unlike many builders, they did not present us with lighting “packages.” If you haven’t built before, this may not be a familiar concept, but many builders offer preselected bundles of light fixtures that you can choose from. If you aren’t particular, this can make the process quick and easy, but if you are (and I am), then you may end up with fixtures you know you’ll end up replacing after closing. Our builder instead gave us a credit that we could use towards any fixtures at a local lighting company. We could choose to spend more on top of that, or we could wait and install our own lighting after the fact.
Going into the lighting appointment, my husband and I had discussed spending the allowance and then purchasing remaining fixtures later on to save money. However, for multiple reasons I’ll share next, we were so blown away by the lighting center and designer we worked with that we ended up buying ALL of our lighting through them! Here’s why:
A lighting designer’s knowledge is invaluable
Okay, let’s be clear. I purchase everything from bathing suits to toilet paper to custom framing to you name it online. I am NOT the type of person who needs in person consultation before making a purchase. That’s why I was so completely surprised by how much I got out of working with a lighting designer!
At our appointment, we were paired up with the most knowledgeable designer, Loren. There must have been 1000 different thick books of fixtures from different manufacturers at the store, spanning all different styles and price points. You could spend all day and not even make a dent in reviewing them. Loren was not only familiar with the various manufacturers, but also knew what fixtures they offered, their quality, pricing, even the best corresponding light bulbs. Once we found a fixture we liked, she would show us similar fixtures from other manufacturers at various prices. This ended up saving us a TON of money as I knew some of the looks I wanted, but had no idea about how many different nearly identical options there were at lower price points.
Another thing that astonished me about Loren was that she even knew the specific details of the FINISHES from different manufacturers (one gold is not equal to the next gold). She helped us understand that manufacturer A’s brass finish is more of a bright brass, while manufacturer B’s is a bit darker with gold specks, and that manufacturer A’s finish goes well with manufacturer C’s. You get the idea. I feel soooo much more confident that our selections will coordinate well (but not be matchy-matchy) and that we really know what we are getting.
Access to to-the-trade pieces, and associated discounts
Many of the pieces we purchased are either not available online, or are available at higher price points. This is because many of the manufacturers sell only to the trade, meaning to lighting stores or designers. In some cases, the fixtures we purchased from the lighting company were hundreds of dollars cheaper than the exact same fixture available online. This is just a no brainer.
One word: SCALE
I love design. However, one of the things I find trickiest about designing a space is scale. This is why I’m always hesitant to buy a piece of furniture without understanding what pieces it will sit next to, measuring out the room, etc. All of the pieces need to be the right proportion to one another for a room to feel cohesive. I loved working with Loren because she was able to provide very solid guidance on scale. Case in point – I would have purchased WAY too small of exterior carriage lights had she not helped me recognize the error of my ways and course correct. 🙂
So, what’s the downside of working with a lighting company? The biggest downside in my opinion is that it does take longer. We were told that it would take a couple of months for our fixtures to arrive, which was a non-issue since we weren’t moving into our new home until months later. However, it is something to consider if you’re doing a small remodel or purchasing a single fixture. You could see if they have any in stock or quick ship fixtures if you’re on more of a time crunch.
Also, I did want to mention that this post is in no way sponsored. I haven’t even informed lighting company we worked with that I am writing this post. I just truly surprised myself with how much this experience changed my perspective on how to purchase lighting and I hope that sharing this helps others! If you are considering a lighting purchase, I would definitely recommend checking out a local lighting company. By doing so, you’re not only supporting a business in your community (and we all know local businesses need support right now!) but I believe you’ll end up with better quality, better priced selections – a win-win!
Last but not least, here are our final lighting selections! I tagged items I could find online, but note that pricing may vary in store.
