Lighting is hard! We went and chose all of our lighting fixtures for the new house (all 55 of them!) back in December and decided to revisit them today. Of course now we are second guessing every choice, starting with the great room chandelier. The trouble with this fixture is that we need a matching one (or complementary) for the stairway as well. So one really big (it’s a big room that is open to the upstairs) and one sort of big. We originally chose two chandeliers that had some wood and oil rubbed bronze, but realized tonight that we can’t stand them. So back to the drawing board we went, trying to find some alternatives. We are going with a sort of modern farmhouse theme with the house, with lots and lots of white. If anyone has any brilliant lighting choices, we would love to see them! In the meantime, here are a few that we’ve come up with. The first four are from Restoration Hardware and the last is Eurofase.
Miranda - Lighting is my thing. I see it as the jewelry of your house. I always tell people to leave money for lighting in their budget.
I don’t think your lights need to be the same for the great room and stairwell, infact – if you want things to look more designy, non-matching is actually better for everything from furniture to lighting. They just have to all make sense somehow.
I personally don’t love those first ones from RH because they are becoming a little overdone! Just my opinion 😉
Here are some ideas
http://www.ylighting.com/hive-little-people-large-round-chandelier.html#prettyPhoto
http://www.ylighting.com/moooi-heracleum-light.html
http://www.ylighting.com/search/?Ntt=antler
With historical light
http://www.ylighting.com/robert-abbey-candelaria-36-chandelier.html
Forged iron would be killer against white!
http://www.restorationhardware.com/catalog/category/products.jsp?link=Camino&categoryId=cat5700041
I love these! Even a couple hung at different lenghts and sizes ( see pic) would be magnificent. LOVE
http://www.restorationhardware.com/catalog/product/product.jsp?productId=prod640007&categoryId=cat5700084
I have to run – but will send more when I get a chance 🙂 Hope this helps.