I’ve been struggling with how to light my great room now for awhile. It is a cathedral ceiling, 12/12 pitch with TIG pine. My wife doesnt want to mount any fixtures on it, as it would ruin the cabin look of it. Problem is, the room needs lighting. I thought of mounting single fixtures along the edge of the roofline, using MR16 Halogen bulbs, but they are only 50W and rather dim. I know there are codes for lumen amounts in living spaces, this is no kitchen, but you have to be able to see. Any rule of thumb for fixturing lamps? We’ll use floor and end table mounted lamps, but I’d like a general washing light that I can switch at the wall.
I dont know what the lumen code should be, is there a general wattage bulb at a certain spacing that would be a rule to follow?
I’m making this post sound pretty ignorant…
Tom
Replies
A rustic style "chandelier fixture", (or more than one depending on the size of the room) would actually be very in keeping with a cabin style, and would provide the ambient light you're looking for. They are made in many materials, including wood, wrought iron, antler, copper, etc. Mounting halogens along the roofline would give it a different look, more contemporary, and would draw the eye either to the walls or to the ceiling depending on how you direct the wash. It would be harder to provide ambient light that way, unless maybe the ceiling is painted white and you can bounce the light off of that.
I'd suggest you and your wife visit a lighting showroom - not a box store, but a real lighting showroom that has designers on staff. Bring good photos of your room. They will be able to give you some great ideas and advice, including not only fixture styles but also lighting reguirements for different purposes. They will also have many catalogs that you can look through to find options in chandelier style fixtures available.
If you use only table and floor lamps for ambient light, you'll probably end up with very spotty light. That is physically hard on the eyes; your eye muscles continually try to adjust to light, dark, light, dark as you look around the room, making it uncomfortable and unsettling.
"A completed home is a listed home."
Thanks Lisa. I'm not sure what a lighting store is, do you have an example?
Tom
Wheere do you live?Look in the Yellow Pages under Lighting. There should be a few listed. For something more rustic, you may have to do a greater search - in other areas, maybe when visiting friends in other cities.F
Like Frankie suggested, try "Lighting Fixtures - Retail" in the Yellow Pages. If you live in a rural area you'll have to drive to a city to find one, but it will be worth the trip. A chain store like "Lamps Plus" might work, but they will represent fewer manufacturers and you may get more highly qualified designers at an independent store. Here's a link to the kind of place I mean (this one is here in Sacramento): http://www.hobrechtl1.com/"A completed home is a listed home."
Here's a link to a showroom in Akron, and their website says they have free consultation services for new home builders:
http://www.whitmerslighting.com/"A completed home is a listed home."
Try this link. Might work, depending on your style and taste.
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jhtml?id=0006552612235a&type=product&cmCat=search&returnString=hasJS=true&_D%3AhasJS=+&%2Fcabelas%2Fcommerce%2FCabelasCatalogNumberFinder.giftCertificateURL=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Ftemplates%2Fgiftcertificate%2Fgiftcertificate.jhtml%3Fid%3D0005586990011a%26podId%3D0005586%26catalogCode%3DIB%26navAction%3Djump%26indexId%3D&_D%3A%2Fcabelas%2Fcommerce%2FCabelasCatalogNumberFinder.giftCertificateURL=+&QueryText=light+fixture&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jhtml.8&N=4887&Ntk=Products&Ntx=mode+matchall&Nty=1&Ntt=light+fixture&noImage=0&returnPage=search-results1.jhtml
You can speak of that and taste in the same sentence???
It sounds like your room might be similar to ours. The attached pic shows what we did: 50W par 20 bulbs at the rafter tails. At this point the bulbs are in simple 99 cent 'porky' fixtures. We also added two wall sconces and floor plugs in the center of the room for table lamps.
Scott.
If you click on your own name in blue, you should be offered the chance to fill in your profile; this can be handy for helping answer questions.
The other white/yellow pages title to look under is Dealer('s) Lighting, or Lighting Dealers. You can often google that search, too, if you are more rural than urban, or have multiple urban areas to choose from.
Now, I think you've gotten some good answers. I like a mix of visible and less-visible fixtures (I particularly like indirect lighting for living spaces).
So, a chandelier works, it's a visible point source for light. It's also a decorative feature for the space in and of itself. I'd add some form of cove or semi-concealed lighting for the surface of the ceiling. Bouncing indirect light along the ceiling helps "fill" a room with light.
That could be a number of things, LV mini-floods; strip lighting of one sort or another--that sort of thing. I've used tubular indcandescents in light coves on cabin-like ceilings before. Standard medium-base incandescent bulbs have many advantages, like dimming, availabilty, etc.
For a real adventure, get us a picture, we might have even more ideas.
Thanks for the feedback, I will have to get a couple pics and post them. My room is very large; 44 x 15 with a balcony overlooking the full 44 length, and a fireplace at one end. I've installed two 3 fixture MR16 mini floods to highlight the fireplace, and see how dim they are. They dont seem to be adequate for setup to provide ambient light to the whole room.
Will get the pics over the weekend.
Tom
Ohio? Cool, there's a bunch of BTers in and near Ohio.
two 3 fixture MR16 mini floods to highlight the fireplace, and see how dim they are
Yeah, you need a lighting dealer; to highlight the fireplace you need a mini or a micro spot. Those are usually a specialty item. The good part about a specialty dealer is you can ask question and they'll have answers.
Since you have six fixtures available, and you have some long distances, a micro spot in a focusing luminare might be just the treat. It could be that two small floods with a spot is what is needed, too.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
It depends to some degree on the color of the ceiling. If it's reasonably light colored then some sort of bounce lighting is feasible. ("Reasonably light" means roughly anything no darker than honey maple stain.)
The bounce lighting can be individual incandescents, or strip fluorescent lights. They can be hidden behind an appropriate wood (or drywall) "cornice" attached to the roof framing members.
Keep in mind that this is a fairly inefficient way to light, as over half the light will generally be lost into the wood. So you need a bit more lumens up there than would be needed for more direct lighting.
When you make some decisions and/or install the lighting, will you update us on how it turned out?
"A completed home is a listed home."
Yes, I will. The room used to have 3 "wagon wheel" lights mounted at the crest of the cathedral ceiling. I'm thinking of using these outlet boxes for a flood type can, maybe a double on two of them. The third will be a source for a chandelier in the dining room section. I think this will work nice, but wife is hard to convince.
Tom