The new hardwood floor is in and will soon be sanded and sealed. The electric cables that came up through the platform a foot from the wall have been relocated to a less obtrusive position and although the room will need new paint soon it's a blank canvas I can't wait to colour. It will need a rug, something to soften all that wood, a credenza for the TV (we'll swap the big TV from the master for the smaller one that used to be in the media center) and a couple of sconces. I have plans to use pieces I have in the house for the first two but the sconces will require some real live shopping. It'll take some courage to start looking at lamps again - it's really hard to judge from a product image in a catalogue or web page how it will actually look in a furnished space. But I've made a start and found a few contenders:
jefdesigns Legna wall sconce via Design Public. It comes in teak, walnut or zebrawood veneer - I like the walnut.
The Oggetti Dune Flushmount Wall Sconce via Lumens. Available in Black/Sand, Mocha/White and Sand.
Parker Half Round Sconce by Jonathan Adler via ylighting in Deep Patina Bronze. Aso available in Polished Nickel and Antique Brass.
Just to confirm the wondrous conundrum of coincidence, The Guy and I were speculating whether top hats would make a comeback - especially after Johnny Depp wore one in Alice in Wonderland - when from another direction completely, design not fashion, our musings found their answer. Wooster Black/Silver Pendant Lights from Heals. Also available in Jeeves - the ultimate bowler hat at your service.
I did manage to get a couple of things done last week - like finding the perfect pleated shade for the bargain lamp I scored a couple of weeks ago. Eventually I might get round to sorting the stuff on the credenza but until then - enjoy!
A couple of accessories made their way into The Cool House recently. Firstly, thanks to kind Patricia who keeps her eye out for Georges Briard pieces, a serving dish with a stunning MCM pattern on the lid
Next from a local Antique dealer at Yankee Peddler this large grey ceramic lamp. A uniquely modern bargain with a very sensual shape. It lacks a shade though and the naked CFL bulb is not doing it for me at all. What do you think - Drum? Oval? Giclee?
You know how it is when you are renovating, you visit a house and notice all sorts of things you want to incorporate in your own home. That's what it was like when we saw the music room at The Breakers, which in turn was inspired by the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
At the mansion huge mirrors were positioned on opposite sides of the room and enormous Baccarat crystal chandeliers hung between them to create an optical illusion - the lights reflected in the mirrors seem to stretch into infinity, making the room appear endless. How neat it would be, I thought, if we could recreate this back at The Cool House.
Then I forgot about it until yesterdy when a lightbulb blew in one of the sconces in the dressing room. As I switched the light back on after replacing the bulb I saw the same trick of the eye I'd witnessed at the mansion but on a more modern, and a more modest, scale. I don't know why I hadn't noticed it before, but maybe I shouldn't remove the 70s mirrored walls when we renovate this space?
This post is part of the Hooked on Fridays fest
We had a very inspiring trip to the Met Museum the other day. Another small exhibition we wandered into was Classic/Fantastic: Selections from the Modern Design Collection. This show had lots of desirable pieces, we'd seen before like the Clarice Cliff pottery and the Henning Koppel silver clam-shaped serving dish, but especially the Taccia lamp, designed in 1962 by Achille Castiglione. We know we've hit upon a favourite when both The Guy and I yell out from opposite sides of the room "I love that lamp". The Taccia is glass floodlight atop a fluted column, it is at once classic and modern and fits perfectly into our style. And we have the perfect spot for it: placed on a plinth in the corner at the top of the front stairs. It would provide much needed light there, illuminate the redwood ceiling and provide something beautiful to look at even when not switched on. Luckily it's still available from Flos via ylighting for $2,548.00. Unluckily we are still forced to endure the fierce frugality measures we imposed at The Cool House in our attempt to mitigate the economic meltdown. It's a good thing we can go check it out at the Met when the need arises, no?
Starlight Pendant from Heal's. On sale for 75 GB pounds. I don't have anywhere for it to go but I love it, I may even go visit it when I'm in London. J'adore.
Cutting edge technology takes designer Dan Yeffet's fingerprint and turns it into the Detail.MGX lamp. Originally offered in a limited edition of 30 large spheres, it's now available as a more affordable series of three mini pendant lamps. The lamps are produced using Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), a 3-D printing technique that is becoming more widely seen in lighting, furniture and textile design. Detail.MGX will be one of the products on view at 100% Design in London next month.
If you like modern lighting stroll over to 2modern Design Talk where they are currently running a competition to win this Meridian Table Lamp from Lights Up!.
All you have to do is visit the 2Modern lighting shop and then leave comments about it on on the contest page. Not too complicated is it? Competition ends June 30th.
*Today's light-themed playlist at the bottom of the webpage. Bragging rights for the reader who knows the artist who wrote/recorded this song, which is not on the playlist. Extra points if you know what he's doing now!
My prize arrived yesterday, the Jonathan Adler Carlyle Beaded Lamp I won last month over at ::Surrroundings:: and it's super, fabulous, lovely. Although the finish is Polished Nickel the colour is a subtle silver with a white shade. It's also extremely heavy. I had no idea it would weigh so much. I thought it would be nickel painted ceramic but it's too heavy to be that. This is a good thing as there is little chance a kitty will knock it off the end table.
It's a great design, a classic shape yet modern enough to fit into my den and I love the mix of metals we have going on in there now, the poished nickel with brass spotlights and a chrome and glass chandelier. It seems a lot but it all works together. I need a small accessory or two to sit next to it but it goes well with the new Hayward Red pillows I got from Crate and Barrel a couple of weeks ago. This room is starting to come together and I'm delighted I entered that competition.
I'm currently lusting after a couple of items I've seen on auction sites on the internets. 
First this modelicious 1970s Pucci Rocker available on 1st dibs. I'm totally in love with it but I think it's just too much for this house, although it might go here.
On the other hand these classy Lithic Floor Lamps, also from the 70s at Vintage and Modern are totally modern and in keeping with the style of this house. They are still produced today by the original manufacturer, J. Robert Scott so I can keep them on my wish list for now.
Of course if you are going to take down the light in the dressing room to use in the powder room you have to put something in its place. Luckily (or part of my devious master plan to drive The Guy crazy) I had a spare halogen light fixture from the master closet light improvement project. Unfortunately when The Guy removed the fixture he revealed a circle of Navajo white that didn't match the surrounding super white paint. But luckily again, I had a can of that left over, so all we had to do was give the circle a quick coat of paint and voila. Right?
I'll spare you the photos because here's how it went down.
"What's the quickest way to do this, we don't want to go get a roller do we?"
"I've got a touch-up sponge you can use, but it could get messy so just strip off your shirt and jeans and I'll get it"
That was the luckiest thing that happened all day because you'd be surprised how much paint those sponges can hold. When The Guy jumped on the chair dressed only in underpants and socks and pressed that sponge to the ceiling there was....
Let's just say the clean-up took far longer than the touch-up.
Ever since we moved in I've had difficulty getting dressed. No, not with the buttons or zippers, it's colours that have been the problem. I can't tell you the number of times I've left the house thinking I was dressed head to toe in basic Soho black and found out I had on a brown shirt, black trousers and navy boots. While Stacey and Clinton may tell you navy and brown are neutrals and you can wear any neutral with anything else, this is a BIG FAT LIE. You just look like you have no sense of style, or you got dressed in the dark. Which is pretty much what I've been doing since June 2004.
I'm feeling much better after the recent bout of sickness. And a little restless (nothing done on our 2008 House Resolution List) so I went to Ikea to get a $5 lampshade to go on the recent ebay purchase. $5 I figured wouldn't break the bank and it would only take me 5 minutes as I knew exactly what wanted. Ha, I was cursed by the Ikea fairy as I walked in the door. Actually not fairies but two "greeters" a la Walmart. Normally this would scare me but they weren't too cheery, and were quite young and fit and while I was wondering when Ikea Long Island started to employ people to smile at you as you entered, in fact when they started to have enough employees they could afford to station two at the entrance, and whether they were expecting a riot? Or someone taking up residence in the store without permission, that I was unexpectedly pulled deeper into the lighting department by some really bright halogen ceiling lights.
Really bright lights that would fit in our master closet. So that I could see what I was pulling on in the morning. So I wouldn't leave the house looking like I didn't care what I looked like. And they were only $35 each. I bought two.
It took Steven 30 seconds to take down the old lights and put one of the new ones up. They've changed the fittings on the Ikea ceiling lights and they are a joy to fix. Could have done it myself it was so easy. No fiddling twisting wires together - it's a push/pull system. All lights should be this easy. Then it took an hour to fix the second one because the electrical box is buried in the ceiling and we had to devise a system of spacers and screws to get it to the correct depth (thank you original electrician, I wish only good things for you) but I wasn't about to give up on this.
Eventually though we made it work and turned the lights on. Oh my god! So this is what my clothes look like. I had no idea.
I was so impressed that I will be going back to Ikea next week to get another fixture to go in the laundry room. So I can see if the clothes coming out of the washing room really are clean.
Oh, yes, the lampshade I went to Ikea to get. That fitted, too.
We changed the fitting on the lamp I got on ebay so it could take the spider fitting on the Mibo Lulworth shade but I think it's not quite right. While I love the drum shape and the pattern, the shade really needs to be an inch or two lower at the bottom to cover the fitting. Rats. There's nothing I can do about it until I feel strong enough to tackle the shade shops out in the real world.
On the plus side, though, the 75 watt CFC light bulb provides enough light to illuminate the whole of that side of the kitchen so we no longer have to switch on the five floodlights in the ceiling. Think of the money we must be saving. Each of those spots is between 60 and 100 watts. Ka-ching. And one measly little energy-saving bulb lights it better (light shines out the top and bottom of the shade) and doesn't scorch the top of your head either. Who knows, maybe we'll save enough to be able to buy a Mibo lamp base for the Lulworth shade?
The answer to the question in yesterday's post is "by leaving 5cm exposed".
It took three attempts to fix the new pendant light to the ceiling in Verity's room because we had forgotten how much of the ceiling screw to leave hanging down. Too much and there would be an ugly chrome screw visible between the fitting and the ceiling, 
too little and the plate wouldn't screw on. 
Five cms is perfect. We need to be this precise, almost 2" doesn't cut it. 
I took the Mibo shade off and just plonked it on the lamp to get the effect but I really like it. When I've taken the Gorilla Glue (thank you Jennifer for the suggestion) to the break in the ceramic, I'll put the shade on and voila - two new lights.
Rule #1 when keeping a houseblog should be BLOG EVERYTHING, every little detail, no matter how insignificant, irrelevant or just plain boring it may seem at the time. By doing that you will be able to avoid the "Well how did you fix it last time?" conversation that is an integral part of home repair and renovation. Because you could just LOOK IT UP ON YOUR BLOG.
Ever since I put the Mibo pendant light in Verity's room I've felt it was too small for the space. You can't really tell from the photo but her room is 15' x 11' while the lampshade is only 12" diameter.
I actually used the same dimensions as the original chandelier but that was a fancy piece so it seemed bigger.
The interim light, that came out of Steven's office was also small, but longer so again we had the illusion it was bigger.
I was really happy with the pendant lights we had in the other bedrooms so I searched for something 20" wide with a diffuser underneath (so the light won't shine in her eyes) and eventually found the Double-Dip Pendant Light, at CB2. I've been really happy with the quality of their shades, and the price is unbeatable.
I'm hoping that the Mibo shade will sit on the new (old) teak lamp I bought on ebay last week.
The shade arrived this morning and I think it's going to work but I won't know until Saturday when Steven will be doing his lampshade adjustment dance again, but this time in reverse.
Super quick shipping from the seller, my ebay lamps arrived today. I was so excited. 
I love the teak top that reminds me of deer antlers without being an overdone design trend. The ceramic base drapes gracefully down to the base. And those little brass ball feet? Too cute. I think it looks fabulous. I just need to go get a hanger and shade. 
Unfortunately, despite being wrapped in bubble plastic and being nestled in a ton of polystyrene chips, its partner didn't make the journey unscathed. Poor cracked baby. Apart from filing a claim with FedEx I'm not sure there's anything I can do to fix this. Ceramic isn't self-repairing, is it?
