This Old House, Part 2

After reading my brilliant blog, I guess, the spousal unit relented and is willing to permit Bill to open a window over the sink into the living room. Hooray!

I can't believe how much bigger the kitchen looked with the cabinets out. It still looks pretty good with no top cabinets installed yet. My friend Karen and I discussed this and she said that she realized even tiny British kitchens looked large because they did not have upper cabinets. I need the storage space, so that is definitely NOT an option.

We went to the Lamps 'R' Us last night and almost immediately agreed on the new fan for the living room which has lights (the current one does not.) It will go over the area where we have our dining table. Then we spent a hour trying to figure out a solution to the problem with lighting the kitchen.

We didn't have enough head room for hanging lights that would offer diffusion (the high point of the exposed rafters is in the living room and reaches to a 12' or so point.) The track lighting just doesn't light evenly enough and is pretty warm once you get enough units in to light the room. Eventually, we gave up and went on to Lowe's to see what they had to offer.

I decided to look in the kitchen area of the store when inspiration hit near the counter samples: large fluorescent units which can fit between the rafters. So we'll put 2 2' x 4' daylight balanced units in and that gives me skylight without skylights. Len immediately agreed that was genius and when we got home, we chose the two spots for installation. They should also be a lot easier to keep clean than the track lighting has been.

The elves will be very busy today. Bill says he has to get the job finished so he can go on to other work.