Make your own light fixture with a designer's blessing

The terrific Grace Bonney had a piece on her equally terrific Design Sponge yesterday that talked about how to make a Lindsey Adelman chandelier. Why this stands out is that the resulting fixture isn't a knock off. Rather, it's an Adelman-endorsed undertaking.

Let me explain a little bit. Lindsey Adelman is a lighting designer, but that doesn't begin to describe her work. She's an artist and innovative designer in general and these days she's expressing herself through lighting. That sounds more like it. Adelman's work is as distinctive as it is desired and for most people, an Adelman chandelier is a pipe dream. It's fodder for "when I make it rich" daydreams.

However, Adelman has a solution. On her website and blog, she has downloadable instructions on how to make the chandelier pictured here. She's even included a parts list and links to where you can buy the parts on line. Brava!

So, need a project for this weekend? If you make one of these chandeliers, Adelman wants to hear from you. Send her a photo. While you're at it, send me one too. I'd love to see somebody take this on. Who's up for it?

It's a warehouse sale at Form Plus Function

BiBiBiBi by Ingo Maurer

Form Plus Function is on my short list of favorite online sources for modern and contemporary lighting. They stock and sell all of the greats and I can usually find anything I need somewhere on that extensive website. I have an unusually difficult time finding lighting sources locally. Oh they're here. And how. But have yet to find a lighting source that's capable of returning a phone call let alone delivering my lighting in anything close to a reasonable time frame. It's an endless source of irritation.

I prefer to do business with local, independent vendors. But when my local independents don't seem to want my business, I take it online.

OK, with that off my chest, Form Plus Functions is having a warehouse sale and there are some real deals to be had. Form Plus Function sells lighting by my favoritest lighting designer Ingo Maurer. I have never seen Ingo Maurer originals go on sale in my life and it must be a sign of the times.

Birdie's Nest by Ingo Maurer

Ingo Maurer is a German typographer turned lighting designer with a world wide following. His fixtures are functional art and feature a perspective that amuses as it illuminates. His work walks a line between the conceptual and the practical. Improbable though his work looks, it never loses sight of the fact that at the end of the day it's still a light fixture.

Floatation by Ingo Maurer

So of course, in addition to Ingo Maurer, Form Puls Function stocks such notable brands as Besa, Artemide, Flos, Tech Lighting, W.A.C., George Kovacs, Modernica, Hubbardton Forge and too many more to list here. Seriously, their warehouse sale is not a gimmick, check it out if you're in the market for new lighting.

Oh Mei Ma White by Ingo Maurer

Tape LED lighting has arrived

Actually, it's been around for a little while but I'm using it in a renovation I have under construction right now and I am pretty hyped up about the stuff. LEDs have come a long way in a very short period of time. I don't think they're quite ready for prime time yet, but they are getting there fast. Check out this restaurant:

This room's lit with LEDs entirely and it's probably using a tenth of the electricity required for the same level of light using incandescent bulbs. There are LED recessed lights in the ceiling over the bar and there are LED tape lights tucked under the bar itself and in a recess above the rear wall and the lights in the display cabinets are LED task lights. As cool as that is, it's a restaurant and you don't light homes the same way that you light restaurants.

But where the real-life application comes in is in the tape lights, and I'm using them as under cabinet lighting in the renovation I mentioned earlier. Here's a roll of LED tape light from W.A.C. Lighting.

It really does come in a roll like that and you dispense it to size and cut it just like tape. It's 8mm wide and even has an adhesive back and all you have to do is press it into place and connect it to a power supply.

A whole roll of that stuff when it's still on the roll is blindingly bright. I'm still freaked out by the idea of light that doesn't produce heat, but I'm getting used to it.

Each of those white diodes is a light believe it or not and they have a 50,000 hour lifespan. Because it's so new, a five-meter roll of the stuff will set you back around $300 and that's already about half what it was two years ago.

Tape lighting's some pretty wild stuff. There are waterproof varieties out there and because it's LED, it can come in many colors. If you're feeling particularly festive, you can buy tape lighting that cycles through all of the colors of the spectrum. That sounds a little Shanghai to me if you know what I mean.. My job's getting warm white ones thank you very much.

What you're seeing here is the future kids and you heard it here first.

More lighting fun with Kichler's Design Pro LEDs

Last January, I wrote two posts introducing Kichler's Design Pro LED lighting. You can read them here and here. Back then, the Pro series had to two models of under cabinet lighting. What's really interesting about Kichler's Design Pro LED lighting series is that the warm, white light they produce is similar to the light produced by an incandescent bulb. The similarities stop there though. The LEDs used in Kichler's Design Pro lights uses 75% less electricity and each bulb is rated with a 40,000 hour lifespan. That's 20 years. The energy and replacement light bulb savings over the course of 20 years makes the initial cost of LED lights a bargain.

Kichler just added onto the Design Pro series in the form of these rail lights.

The first is a modern, urban four-light rail. It's available in a brushed nickel finish with a white glass shade. Each light along the rail swivels independently.

And the second is a more transitional four-light rail. It's available in the brushed nickel finish with white glass as well as in an Olde Bronze finish with a light umber glass shade. As with its more modern cousin, each light swivels independently on this fixture.

Here's the more modern rail in a bathroom, and you can see the independent swiveling in action. That these lights can be positioned independently is the key feature here. This means that you can use the rail fixtures above an island with the shades positioned for reading the newspaper, or in the kitchen, trained toward a counter for food preparation. Each shade swivels 90 degrees and rotates up to 359 degrees. Each model has the same dimensions, 42-and-a-half inches in length, four-and-a-half inches in width and nine inches in height. These are substantial fixtures that when when placed properly, will provide years of proper lighting.

These are great features and that's a huge amount of light coming out of an LED. Kichler is really onto something with this Pro series. These lights are available at independent lighting showrooms and you can learn more about them on Kichler's website.

Rachele from The Conscious Kitchen installed Kichler's Design Pro LED under cabinet lights in her recent and beautiful kitchen renovation. I wonder what it would take to get her to weigh in with an opinion about them... Rachele?

Have you seen this pendant light?

This is a Panton Moon Pendant. It was designed by Verner Panton and introduced in 1960. The Panton Moon became an overnight sensation and a classic was born.

I received an e-mail from a reader yesterday. She found an original Moon Pendant at a store near her home and picked it up for the unimaginable price of $150. Original Moon Pendants typically sell for ten times that. Somebody got a bargain to end all bargains. She wrote to me and asked if I know of a source where she can buy a licensed reproduction of her Panton Moon Pendant.

The answer is that no, I don't. All of my usual sources for that sort of thing come up blank when I look for that lamp. So I'm writing a post to ask if anybody out there knows where to look for a reproduction. A licensed reproduction will match her original exactly as opposed to a knock off that won't. Her plan is to hang the original alongside a reproduction over her kitchen island. It sounds idyllic frankly, and I'd like to help her out if I can.

Verner Panton (1926 - 1998) was a Danish furniture and interior designer. He's most remembered for his wild use of color and his radical thinking about how form and function interact. Some of his edgier creations, like this environment called Phantasy (1970), preserve his time in the spotlight perfectly.

In 1970, everything was up for grabs, or so it seemed. Who says that there needs to be a clear delineation between walls, floors and ceiling? Who says that furniture can't be structural and that structures can be furniture? Who says indeed? Panton and his contemporaries blazed a trail and carried the whole of our culture with them. Despite the initial negative reaction on Main Street to Phantasy, within a few years the men on Main Street were wearing four-inch-wide paisley ties. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Not all of Panton's work has been left behind in the era when he created it. A lot of his furniture is still in production.

This is his S Chair, also from 1960. The S Chair was the world's first injection-molded, mass produced object and it's been in continuous production ever since. The S Chair proved that injection molding was possible and viable and the world has never been the same.

Panton and the designers of his generation left behind a legacy that lingers, even if his aesthetic is not longer popular. I'm excited that somebody wants to use some of his pieces in her home and the question remains: has anybody seen this light?

Jamie takes Manhattan

One of the great developments of 2009 has been my discovery of the great designer Jamie Goldberg and her blog Gold Notes. Jamie lives on the other side of Tampa Bay from me and it's been a real boon to make a live connection with someone I've met through the blogosphere.

Jamie just returned from a Manhattan Showroom tour and she's graciously written the following post in which she shares some of her discoveries. Take it away Jamie...

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Visiting New York City as a designer is like visiting Disney World as a child...Exhilarating, energizing, overwhelming and not a little exhausting. Oh, but so worth it!!! I promised my friend Paul Anater, proprietor of this splendid blog, that I'd share my favorite Gotham goodies with you, his dedicated readers. Hope you enjoy!

FIXATED ON FIXTURES

The trend I've been observing this past year or two is the flattening of the vessel sink from its earlier bowl-like existence to a more contemporary, close-to-countertop style. This trip largely took things in the completely opposite direction. The first showroom I visited in New York was Hastings Tile & Bath, also in the A&D Building. Right in its entry was a gorgeous lav called the Grande Ceradur Basin.

In this same shape, but glossy white, is Duravit's Bacino.

Duravit had some other fab fixtures at its Madison Avenue showroom, and in its press kit showcasing upcoming releases.

Starck K is its first-ever kitchen sink, now available in the U.S. market. I love the shape, the optional cutting board and drain board sections and the Anthracite, Chestnut and Pergamon color additions to white that you can choose from.

Its Starck 1 barrel lav is now also available in high glass black and white finishes. Its popular 2nd Floor series also added a white lacquer finish option, and an ultra-cool revolving mirror and mobile storage base. The ebony finish is pretty cool, too. I especially love it on the tall storage cabinet with sliding mirrored door.

I also really liked Duravit's PuraVida lavs with their "pillow-style" concealed drains. (It also includes the option to add the coordinating faucet by Hansgrohe.) PuraVida is scheduled to launch in the U.S. in October.

TILE STYLE

I've always loved tile, even when I was a college student studying Greek and Roman antiquities. Here are some of my fave tile finds in New York.

Artistic Tile's Effervescence adds fun and flair to your roomscape.

Always an old world enthusiast, I enjoyed Country Floors collection of Pedralbes terra cotta tiles from Spain.

Hastings Tile & Bath featured a large selection of Casamood tiles in traditional and contemporary styles. Lovely collection, including this Iki thin tile.

Seeing Bisazza mosaics on a display board is one thing. Visiting its Soho showroom was another experience altogether - sheer bliss! This is its restroom.

Sicis, another art tile company, has a spectacular four-story showroom in Soho. The Italian firm not only offers floor and wall tile, but also mosaic-encrusted tubs and its brand-new pendant lights.

NOTES

(c) 2009, Jamie Goldberg, AKBD, CAPS. This posting was excerpted from Gold Notes: Nuggets from the World of Residential Design. Gold Notes is written by Tampa-based kitchen and bath designer, Jamie Goldberg, AKBD, CAPS. To see more New York finds, please click here.

All modern from All Modern

It's my job to echo and interpret the design sensibilities of my clients. Because of that, I spend a lot of time putting together rooms that aren't really my style. Don't get me wrong, I put together some great rooms but I generally don't work on spaces that would make me happy personally. That's fine and as it should be, people don't pay me to recreate my dream home.

With that said, every once in a while I get to work on a project that does appeal to me personally and I'm working on one right now. The clients in question have a good-humored approach to life and to their home and they appreciate modern design. These people a find and it's an honor to work on their home.

Pretty early into the process, I specified four Bertoia counter stools that were supposed to go with a rather large bar I had in mind for the back of a particularly large island. Here are the Bertoia counter stools I was lobbying for.

These Bertoias are part of a collection of similar seating designed by Italian sculptor Harry Bertoia in 1952. This collection was designed for Knoll originally and Knoll still makes the same collection. The Knoll Company was founded in 1938 by Hans and Florence Knoll and it's still making 20th century originals.

Mies van der Rohe, Florence Knoll, Eero Saarinen, Isamu Noguchi, Frank Gehry, Maya Lin, Marcel Breuer and of course Harry Bertoia had and have collections produced by the modern masters at Knoll. Looking though their catalogs is like a stroll through the 20th century. World War II was a lot more destructive socially than most people think and in the years during and immediately after it, everything was up for grabs. In a lot of ways, Modernism was a reaction to the social upheavals of that terrible conflict.

Modernism came about alongside the rise of the middle class in the West and the two forces fed and sustained one another. Modernist designers were committed to getting designed furnishings into the hands of the masses and the masses could suddenly afford it. Companies like Knoll bridged that gap then and continue to do so now.

So let's get back to my clients. When the time came to order the Bertoia counter stools I had my heart set on, my clients balked. They have kids, young pre-teens, and they didn't want to spend the money on furniture that was going to get kicked around by a room full of 10-year-old boys. They're going for a cheap knock off instead. Ugh. My first impulse is to tell them to get the good stuff and just tell the kids they're not allowed to sit on them until they're older. Can you tell I don't have any kids? Hah! But I let it go. They did however, sign off on this amazing light fixture by Sonneman.

I love this light fixture enough to make up for the missing Bertoias in this finished room. Almost.

So had we gone ahead with the Bertoias, they would have come from Boston-based All Modern. All Modern has the full Knoll Collection and they offer free, same day shipping on select Knoll items. All Modern carries all of the greats who make up the entire Modernist movement. Herman Miller, Steelcase, Luce Plan, Louis Poulsen, Hansgrohe, George Kovacs, Droog, Artemide, Artecnica, Kartell and my beloved Alessi swell that website to the point of near bursting. Got an ache for some modernism? Scratch it at All Modern.

Behold the power of the blogosphere

So get this. On Monday, I received an e-mail from a reader in Long Island and she included this photo of a Christopher Peacock kitchen.

She asked me if I knew who made the light fixture in the center of the photograph. Oh man, I like it when someone asks me a question that requires that I dig around for an answer, but my knowledge of what's available in the lighting world is a bit limited. Limited to the sorts of modern or classic lights I usually specify, that is. When it comes to what Christopher Peacock's doing with his lighting, I turn to my favorite Christopher Peacock fan, Gina Milne. Gina writes the great blog Willow Decor and the woman knows her lighting.

As a matter of fact, the reason I know Gina was a similar quest for a light used in a Christopher Peacock kitchen about a year ago. I stumbled up on her blog when I was doing Google searches to try to track down the lighting fixtures in Peacock's now-infamous Refractory Kitchen shown here.

Gina researched this kitchen photograph extensively and published the results of her sleuthing in a post called Elements of a Christopher Peacock Kitchen.

So I thought I try my luck again and I sent the photo my reader sent me to Gina and asked her if she knew who made the ceiling light.

Gina in turn, sent the photo to another design blogger, Brooke Gianetti. Brooke is an interior designer and architect and she writes the blog Velvet and Linen. Brooke turned the quest for this light for my Long Island reader into a blog post of her own and asked her readers if anyone knew who made the light.

Mind you, this took place within hours of my reader asking me.

So on Tuesday morning, Tammy Connor, an interior designer from Birmingham, AL; identified the light in a comment left on Brooke's blog. Brooke told Gina couple hours after that and Gina told me as soon as she heard from Brooke. I shot an e-mail back to my reader around 24 hours after I received her original e-mail. Pretty wild stuff.

How all of this works is pretty mind bending when I sit and think about it. Someone in Long Island asked someone in Florida question (me). I referred to a designer in Boston. She referred it to a designer in LA. The designer in LA got her answer from another designer in Birmingham. That's pretty wild. None of these networks would have been possible until very recently and it's already become commonplace. We live in amazing times.

Oh, the light fixture is the "Cubic Lantern" by Formations in LA. The original e-mail writer, my reader in Long Island has already found it at a lighting dealer in New York. So thank you Gina, Brooke and Tammy!

As an additional note about the above mentioned kitchen design, what’s been especially praised about the design are the hard wood floors, beautiful machines and how they blend well with the kitchen elements, balancing the rustic look with modern touches (like the chairs).

Chosen and maintained right, they’ll be a source of positive vibes in decades to come. I always advise people to take good care of the hard wood floors, primarily by choosing a good hard floor cleaner. If asked for specific recommendations, I always go with Hoover FloorMate Deluxe. 

I'm cleaning my light fixtures today

Oh joy. I like cleaning lampshades almost as much as I like cleaning ceiling fans. To commemorate this happy occasion, I found an image of a lampshade that right out of my nightmares.

Don't look at it for too long, it's hideous I know.

Cleaning lampshades and light fixtures properly can be a daunting task, but if you take your time and think it through, it can be painless and relatively quick. My pals at the Lighting Style Blog put together a couple of pointers on how to clean various fixtures. Their post this week is what prompted me to tackle mine today.

Glass Shades

• Regularly dust with a soft lint-free cloth or dusting wand.
  
• Occasionally, remove the shades from their fittings and wipe both the inside and outside with a damp cloth. If you are at all concerned with using a damp cloth, rule of thumb would dictate use of a dry cloth.
  
• Care should be taken if there is any sort of pattern as excess water or rubbing may damage transfers, hand-painted surfaces, coloring or lead solder.
  
• Wipe with a soft, dry cloth until dry.
  
• Before re-assembly, dust the light bulb and fittings.
  

Fabric Shades

• The best tool to dust a paper shade is an unused, clean, soft-bristled painter’s brush or a hairdryer with a cool/cold setting. Contrary to popular belief, fabric shades should never be vacuumed.  Most vacuums on the market today are too powerful and may stretch or damage the fabric.
  
• Starting at the top of the lamp shade, use a downward long stroke to dust, rotate the shade and repeat. Do not brush too firmly as this may snag, tear or stretch the shade.
  
• The inner surface of shades with inner plastic/hard liners can be wiped down with a clean, soft cloth. Shades with such surfaces should never be washed or dampened as the two materials tend to separate and fall apart.
  
• Some fabric shades that have been stitched to their frame may be washed in a bath of warm, soapy water utilizing a delicate laundry soap. The fabric may stretch or sag when wet. Most fabrics will regain their shape as they dry. Rinse the lamp shade in a bath of clean water until no suds remain. Attach a string to the center frame, hang and let air dry. Do not immerse in water if the shade has delicate trim, beading or has been glued/ taped to its frame. If you are concerned with the fabric type getting wet, contact your local dry cleaner.
  
• Before re-assembly, dust the light bulb and fittings.
  

Paper Shades

• Paper shades are especially delicate to handle and clean.  The best tool to dust a paper shade is an unused, clean, soft-bristled painter’s brush.
  
• Never vacuum a paper shade as it may snag, tear or stretch the paper.
  
• Starting at the top of the lamp shade, use a downward long stroke to dust, rotate the shade and repeat. Do not brush too firmly as this may snag, tear or stretch the shade.
  
• Never use water or damp cloth on the outside of the paper shade.
  
• The inner surfaces of shades with inner plastic liners can be wiped down with a clean, soft cloth.
  
• Before re-assembly, dust the light bulb and fittings.
  

See? Simple. Anybody else have any good pointers to share?

Future Flora lights by Studio Toord Boontje

This Spring's edition of the New York Times Style magazine featured a light fixture that grabbed onto me and wouldn't let go. I followed their links back to the source and found out that there are three lights in this Future Flora collection. Hung together, Future Flora can turn any room into an installation.

The Future Flora series is the product of Studio Toorn Boontje for Artecnica. Artecnica is an LA-based design company that commissions pieces from industrial designers the world over. The Future Flora series consists of three models; the Laure, the Nadine and the Rugiada. All three are made from precision-etched metal sheets. I love seeing light and airy forms in metal and these babies are that in spades.

Well-designed originals needn't break the bank either. The Future Flora pendants are available from Unica Home for $99. Why not do something original and distinctive when it comes time to buy lighting?

I have to confess that I have a fondness for Toorn Boontje, they are the studio who brought the world the Icarus pendant shown here. I can't think of another light fixture that has ever fired me up with the kind of passionate admiration the Icarus did when I fist saw it. Amazing.

Break a CFL? Don't panic.

Lisa Sharkey had a piece in yesterday's Huffington Post where she described her panic over a broken compact fluorescent light bulb in her home. She then listed a series of clean up procedures that could only have been written by a personal injury attorney. Sheesh. Calm down already!

All fluorescent light bulbs contain elemental mercury. That includes the long, skinny ones in offices and schools. Elemental mercury is a naturally-occurring heavy metal that's also a neurotoxin in high enough doses. Elemental mercury is a liquid at room temperature and it evaporates into a gas easily. That gas glows when electricity passes through it. Hence its use in light bulbs. Mercury has a long list of practical uses and is found in everything from Mercurochrome to mascara. High concentrations of elemental mercury are more damaging as a gas than as a solid, so there are some sensible precautions you'll want to take should you break one of these bulbs.

But let's get a little perspective first and do some math.

Let's say you break a CFL containing five milligrams of mercury in your child’s bedroom. Further, let's say that bedroom has a volume of 25 cubic meters (that's a medium-sized bedroom). For the sake of illustration, let's assume that the entire five milligrams of mercury in the bulb vaporizes immediately. This would result in an airborn concentration of 0.2 milligrams per cubic meter. This concentration will decrease with time, as air in the room leaves and is replaced by air from outside or from a different room. So even if you do nothing, the concentrations of mercury in the room will likely approach zero after about an hour or so.

Under these relatively conservative assumptions, this level and duration of mercury exposure is not dangerous, since it's lower than the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard of 0.05 milligrams per cubic meter of metallic mercury vapor averaged over eight hours. 

To equate the level of exposure in our broken bulb scenario with OSHA's eight-hour standard Imagine the immediate level of mercury in the room immediately after the bulb broke to be 0.2 milligrams of mercury per cubic meter. If we assume the air in the room changes every hour, then the eight-hour average concentration would be .025 milligrams per cubic meter.

See? No need to panic. While I wouldn't call it harmless exactly, it's not something you need to call a Hazmat team over.

So, in the event that you break a CFL, open a window to speed up the dispersal of the mercury vapor. If it makes you feel better, leave the room for a half an hour. Then come back and clean up the broken glass. 

Beautiful, modern lamps from Inhabit

These are the Builtby lamps from Inhabit and I think they're gorgeous and cool.

You can order these lamps in 19 preconfigured styles or you can design your own.

It's pretty ingenious, really. If you choose the Design My Own option, there's an interactive lamp builder with all of the parts and colors sitting there, waiting for you to make a one-of-a-kind modern lamp. Or several for that matter.

Inhabit offers free shipping on orders of $50 in the continental US, and the shipping's free on order of $100 or more in Canada, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska.

I know Inhabit from their show-stopping wall flats and these Builtby lamps are a pleasant surprise. More surprising and even more pleasant are their pillows, throws, art and bedding. Check them out.

Many thanks to the amazing Creede at Grassroots Modern for the heads up.

LED Light Reviews

Justin Thomas, the guy behind the blog MetaEfficient: The Guide To Highly Efficient Things just launched a sister site to the original MetaEfficient. The new site is LED Light Reviews and it's dedicated to LED lighting exclusively.

I read MetaEfficient pretty religiously, but then again I have a thing for efficiency. Want to win my undying devotion? Tell me that I'm efficient and I'm putty in your hands.

LED are not new, but they are getting a lot of attention as the technology behind them improves. LEDs are highly efficient; they use very little power, produce more light and have no moving parts. Make no mistake, LEDs are the future of lighting. The quality and color of light they produce can be rather hit or miss though. Justin's new site features no-nonsense product reviews for all things LED. Getting ready to replace some lighting? Think about making the switch to LEDs.

Such a deal!

Save $130 on this Espresso Wood with Tiffany Style Shade Floor Lamp (29493) from LampsPlus.com. Use code AFFSP1 at checkout.