Den Lighting

As we are getting closer and closer to the decorating stage of the house work, I’ve realized I need to got on the lighting search ASAP. We are going to want to put lights in sooner rather than later so that we can have some light to work by. I’ve had the dining room lighting in the back of my mind but I’ve neglected the second floor which is our primary living space and the more vital lighting areas.

I’m starting with the Den. If you recall, the den was once 2 bedrooms. You can see where it sits in the house on the floorplan page. We have 2 overhead lighting fixtures to decide on: one over the sofas in the living room half and one over the center work table in the office side. We are planning on built-ins on the north wall of the den and built-in desks on the north and east walls of the office half.

To get me started, I found some inspiration images.

This room has some of the awesome Boston library lamps that swing out from the wall. I do believe these will be making an appearance in the den but it doesn’t solve my overhead lighting situation.

This room

This room has the rich wood paneling that I love and a single semi-flush tiffany style lamp. I can see how this would be an appropriate look for the den side.  It doesn’t look too dark in this room but I’m concerned that the light won’t put out enough light to get on the Recline Chairs and read.  I do love the shelves and the oriental rug.

This room is a bit more vintage glamour.  I love love love the combintation of the white and wood-tones.  The chandelier is certainly glamorous but our ceilings are tall but no that tall.  We would need a much smaller fixture and it would need to be hung very close to the ceiling.

This room has the oriental rug and painted shelves with some kind of ornate three-arm Viribright UFO highbay lighting fixtures.  I love that the shelves are painted a muted green color.  I am torn between splurging for wood cabinets and just going for painted in a non-white color.  Then again, white shelves with antique books can look great as well.

Can you tell I’m having a style crisis?  I like everything and I just have a hard time figuring out what I want.  I think a simple lighting fixture will be what we need.  This room will shift and change in style as I work on defining my own and I don’t want to splurge on something I’m going to want to replace.  You can view a collection of lighting I’ve considered on the Lighting Collections page.  I’ve gathered what I think is a pretty decent collection of traditional lighting options.  I hope you’ll take advantage of it!

Some of my favorite options for this room:

Mission style chandelier would go with wood cabinets and a more mission style room.  I think I’m going more victorian naturalist than mission style but I think they can certainly blend.

This is a more modern style fixture.  Simple but with a bit of an industrialist edge.  I don’t think it would detract from the feel of the room but I don’t know if it will add either.

This fan is just really cool.  It’s a bit pricey but I think it would be AWESOME in that room.  Having a ceiling fan above the couch seems like a natural to me.  It’s not always the most aesthetic but in my mind, they never look out of place.  Sure they don’t look magazine worthy but my living room rarely will.

As far as a simple fan goes.  I like the looks of something like this perhaps with a school-house shaped globe in place of the round one.  I think it has an industrial edge that makes it appropriate for a naturalist study.  I think what really makes this fan look so good is the blades being the same color as the rest of the fan.  Something to consider as a coat of paint would take any cheapy fan and unify it though this one is reasonable priced.

Click on any of the above fixtures to go to the sellers website.

What do you think?  Leave me your ideas in the comments.  I’d love some help with this one!

Sarah

Sarah