when the lights are goin' down in the city.

Today I'm attempting to order the recessed lights. I decided on five-inch cans (good band name there on a number of levels) as six-inchers are a little big (there's a couple of oddly placed six-inch ones in the big room currently which will be removed), and the four-inchers are sexy, but probably too small/focused. After much internet hunting, good ol' Home(less) Depot seems to be the way to go, but of course they don't make it easy, because the enclosures can only be bought at the store, but the brushed metal trim rings are available only online. Really?!? Get it together guys- literally.

They're currently checking at the local store to see if they have the enclosures, which I'm betting they don't (given the general Home Depot incompetence, I don't expect a call back). Since it's cheaper to buy them in six-packs, I'm buying three for a total of 18 lights. Sounds excessive, but as previously mentioned, I'm installing ten in the kitchen/living room, and the family room will need another six. Since it's all kind of one room (only divided by the fireplace), I want to get them all at once so I don't end up with mismatched lights later. That said, probably only the trim rings are important to match, but I'm playing it safe. Here's what they'll look like:

Made of real metal and everything! Right now I'm doing the fun part, which is selecting which sexy Lutron dimmer(s) I'll be using. Which is really tough, because they have a gaggle of really neat looking ones (BTW, you know you're a super-obsessive nerd if you get excited about dimmers). We could do the very authentic classic mid-century modern Centurion:
Or the almost-as-classic Nova (Carl Sagan not included):

Or finally, the more modern Lyneo:

They have bunch of other neat ones, but many of them have really tiny dimmer controls. These are the most ergonomically sound ones (listen to how pretentious I sound...). Whatever I chose, it'll be black with brushed silver plates. I already started this trend when I replaced the outlets in the kitchen last week.

BTW, I just found a place on Amazon that sells all this crap called "Dim N Dimmer". Not making that up. Very clever.

recess-itation necessary

If I were less lazy, I would've Photoshopped the overly-large white background out.Sorry the posts haven't been coming along at the usual rapid clip, but the mud 'n' sanding the walls and ceiling is all kinds of slow. If I posted pics, you probably wouldn't notice much difference. It's tedious and dusty there, and fatigue sets in pretty quick when you're working upside down on the ceiling (isn't that a Lionel Richie song?).

In more exciting, "things movin' along" news, Handyman Keith was here today with his ebullient wife, and we plotted out the quantity and rough locations of the recessed ceiling lights. I'm tearing down the awful fluorescent lights in there (which sucked back around 400 watts combined when on- talk about an energy consumption nightmare!). Besides the afore-blogged Sputnik lamp in the dining area, looks I'm doing a total of ten four-inch lights; four in the kitchen area, and six more in the big room. Of course there's enough existing switches and wiring to run Van Halen's light rig on the Fair Warning '81 tour, so we're covered there.

Today I'm researching the mundanities of recessed lamp housings. Apparently they make what's called "IC rated", which means "if you have ceiling full of old insulation that's just dying to burst into flames, you need this kind", which won't heat up and do just that. Of course they cost more. The upside is that they make them specifcally for CFL bulbs (which don't get nearly as hot), thus, less heat = smaller/slightly cheaper. But they're still looking to be around $200 for six, and I need ten, and that doesn't exclude the external trim hardware… it's never easy and if it is, it's probably not cheap.

And about that external trim hardware:

It's a lot of "any color you look as long as it's white". Of course I want silver, so that's a little less common, but still available. Looks like I'm gonna be taking a trip to ye olde Home Depot today. I shall report back!

sliding glass whore.

While avoiding doing more drywall mud, I started searching for sliding glass doors to replace the one in my living room. Not only is it horrendously ugly (brown with a non-removable grid of lines making it resemble some kind of farmhouse fixture), the track hardware is beyond broken, so it's super hard to open and close, and easily jumps off the track.

I want to replace it with a basic silver aluminum-framed slider- minimal, slick, y'know. Of course everyone who walks in here says "YOU NEED FRENCH DOORS". Nnnnnoooo I don't. Ugly! French doors can stay in France, thankyouverymuch. They were clearly trying to tell us something when they stopped flying the Space Shuttle... the Space Age is OVER. But I won't be deterred.

Anyway, do you know how hard it is to find silver aluminum sliding glass doors?!? I sure didn't. Everything at Lowe's and Homeless Depot is either vinyl (thus brown or white) or some hideous wood with a grid of divided little windows. Yuck again. Searched all over Amazon, Yahoo shopping, etc. So far I found ONE place that makes them (they're called Arcadia. I did not try the Power Station), and they don't sell online and have no prices, so it could be $$$. And I eventually need two of them (one for the side, and one for the wretched bay window that I'm gonna remove in the back). The good news is they have a local distributor. The hunt continues. Why does everything I like have to be difficult?

Update on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 2:45PM by celebutante

BTW, I sorta lied. There's a company called Fleetwood (no relation to Mac, or the car), but they're who you go to for your million-dollar home with entire sliding glass walls. They'll make you anything you like, but it will cost $15,000. Gulp.

sigman sigman sputnik

Just ordered this sweet Sputnik Chandelier for the dining area (where the slightly-less giant pile of rubble currently lives). It's a lot harder to find the the "right" Sputnik lamp than one would think- many of the reproductions have short dinky arms that don't look that good. This one has a 28" span with bulbs, but only hangs down a total of 15", which will work well with my standard height eight-foot ceilings. And it was $300, which is WAY less than the actual sixties ones on ebay. Also talked with my handyman today about lighting for the main part of kitchen (that I keep posting pics of), and we/he are gonna start on recessed lights up there. I'd like to do the little kind because they look real slick, but I'm going to seek his advice first; I'm concerned they might be too "spotlight-y".

Anyhow, the Sputnik shall dangle atop the table below, which is Ikea's classic Eero Saarinen  Tulip Table knock off (and is currently in pieces in my garage; I scored a deal on a used one in LA before I moved):

I'll probably spring for two matching Saarinen Tulip chair knock-offs. Haven't decided on cushion color yet because I'm still contemplating what color to paint the kitchen, but I'm leaning toward white with turqoise-hued glass tiles, and maybe some kind of blue accent wall (which would be the wall next to where all this mess will sit).

While I'm in show 'n' tell picture mode, in case anyone cares, below is the super awesome kitchen that I'm loosely modeling mine after. I found it in a book then tracked it down online. Of course I'm doing the "low-budg" version, but I think I'll get pretty close. My cabinets and counters will look very similar. I can't afford the constellation of Sputnik lamps though!

an open letter to the asshat who made 10,000 holes in my ceiling.

Hey thanks! Really enjoyed patching them, and I'm gonna really enjoy sanding 'em all too.