While lighting is extremely important, I always planned on keeping this electrical plan simple. The only rooms that we had real freedom in were the game room and bathroom since those walls were already open, meaning we could wire wherever we wanted before closing up the walls. I also wanted to not spend a ton of money on making it perfect or complicated, but to instead have minimal junction boxes for ceiling lights and sconces and just make do. I hope I won’t regret that decision. Let’s see!

Electrical Plan: The Exterior

Carson Sconce | Carson Pendant

Ok, the exterior was easy – just one gooseneck sconce over the sliding door (since we couldn’t do flanking sconces anyway). Easy. We’ll also have matching pendants hanging in the covered walkway. We have these Carson copper gooseneck sconces from Rejuvenation throughout the property, so we’ll add more here.

Carson Sconce | Carson Pendant

As I’m writing this (on vacation), I honestly don’t remember if our electrician put a junction box over the side door, so we mocked it up just in case 🙂

We are doing the same thing over the bathroom door. Easy Peasy. They are centered over the door about 2′ high (so not quite centered vertically but close).

Here’s an area you haven’t even seen yet that might get some serious love. This is the courtyard between the game room and our prop garage. This isn’t a huge priority right now, but I have plans for this area, and while the walls are open, we’ll throw a matching outdoor sconce here as well.

Electrical Plan: The Old Prop Room

Making our way inside…I’m so grateful that our electrician was able to snake the wiring without having to rip up the ceiling! However, we can preserve this home’s original charm, and we will. We kept it simple, and our electrician had some limitations based on where the ceiling framing was, but we put two junction boxes in here, one on each side of this funky room, and that’s it.

The sweet old exterior-mounted knob-and-tube was taken out but replaced with updated, safe junction boxes.

Jasper Flush Mount

I haven’t 100% selected all the fixtures, but I know where I’m leaning. This room needs a pretty short flush-mount since the ceilings are lower, but I still want a pretty shape, and this Jasper fixture (in a darker, aged brass) seems just so simple and classic (but with a really pretty shape). We added a handful of outlets but opted against having sconces in here.

Electrical Plan: The Kitchen & Living Room

Here is where we kept it SUPER simple so as not to rip up the pretty wood walls or ceiling. Joel, our electrician, was able to snake wiring in between some joists (I think from upstairs?) to add a junction box in the ceiling over the presumed round dining table. But I didn’t want to get greedy by adding more sconces or pendants over the presumed island. But I plan on adding adorable kitchen lamps on both surfaces or plug-in sconces (which would allow for more flexibility on what we do above the cabinets and sink). It won’t be the best lighting for cooking, but we are ok with that (and cooking will be minimal out there anyway).

Eldon | Swanner | Westchase | Xavier | Clara | Conley

The fixture over the dining table would need to be multi-bulb and give off a lot of light (so no metal shades or anything that just lights the ceiling. And because it’s going to be in front of the big gridded window, I want it to be on the simpler side in its lines. Something that is graphic and doesn’t compete (but just a drum shade felt a bit boring to me). I’m leaning hard towards the bottom middle, from Olde Brick Lighting in their aged brass, but I haven’t pulled the trigger yet (it’s 27″ wide and ideally the fixture would be 32″, but that’s probably close enough). I like how graphic the glass shades will be against the busier window, and I can put high-wattage (but warm, 2700) bulbs in there and have them on a dimmer so in the winters it can provide ample light.

The living room will have two junction boxes, lighting the room instead of being centered over a future conversation area. They had to be placed in line with each other to be snaked along the same joists.

Jasper Stem | Mini Clara Stem | Jasper Flush

The ceiling in here is decently high (8′), so we can do semi-flush mounts. I’m thinking of something simple to work with the chandelier in the dining room.

Electrical Plan: The Game Room

I touched on this in the game room post, so no real new information here, but this room, which will have wood ceilings and walls, will have three metal shaded chandeliers (I think) that will only hang down 24 -30″. There’ll be more ceiling lights than lighting particular areas.

Warner Sconce

We figured sconces over there would be nice to break up the wall, but not totally sure we need them either (and really hoping it doesn’t negatively affect the layout). For now, I have my eye set on these double-armed sconces.

Osborn Chandelier

The Velux skylights added so much natural light, it’s incredible, but for the darker months, I really think/hope that these fixtures will add enough light. One reader mentioned that staring up at bulbs is annoying (and it is), but I’m planning on using Tala bulbs, which are softer, in hopes of making these work. I just love how playful those are.

Electrical Plan: The Bathroom

Beck Sconce

Here I want two sconces flanking the future sink/vanity. I’m thinking of something that comes out and does something cool architecturally. Likely in aged brass. I should say that I normally choose unlacquered brass, but what I’ve found is that it takes FOREVER to patina (unless you chemically modify it, which is harder for fixtures, easier for hardware). Most of our unlacquered brass light fixtures that were installed 5 years ago are still bright polished brass, so for this project, I am going to choose the aged or antique brass option (not satin brass). I think it will look prettier with the darker tones of the wood.

Edie Chandelier

To light the whole room, we’ll do one chandelier in the middle (and I keep coming back to the dark red Chris Loves Julia fixture). My only fear is that the metal shades and the smaller bulbs will not be bright enough in the winter (does anyone have this fixture?). But stylistically, it’s pretty great in here. We’ll also have a light and fan inside the shower and enough outlets peppered around the room.

Beck Sconce | Beck Ceiling Light

Inside the outhouse, we are going to do one sconce above the toilet and one ceiling fixture. I’ll likely choose the same fixture that is flanking the larger sink and a similar or matching ceiling fixture (but still TBD).

Electrical Plan: The Office/Upstairs

Ridley Sconce

Heading up the stairs, we have one sconce on the back wall, and I really like these dark blue double sconces (just need to make sure the sizing is good). The stairwell could use the extra light, and I think it’s a pretty cute moment for this otherwise ignored wall.

Jasper Flush Mount

Once you get upstairs, there will be one centered semi-flush mount fixture in this in-between/landing space. I’m thinking of using the same fixtures as those in the old prop room – just classic and simple, but a really pretty shape.

And we made the call and demo’d out the old wood shower and toilet stall, seen on the left. While I found them charming and thought they could be repurposed as cute closets, I was the only one that was endeared by them. So we figured that doing more shallow storage (if needed) with cabinets would make better sense. But we also just want more places to shoot in this house, so by taking them out, now we have more usable, shootable space.

For our office, I’m putting in one multi-bulb semi-flush mount centered in the middle of the room. I think between that fixture and desk lamps we’ll be good on light (and again, we didn’t want to rip up or open the walls to preserve the wood as best we could).

Globe Chandelier | Argus Semi-Flush | Jasper Chandelier | Sputnik Chandelier

I like all of these for being relatively classic and simple, but I’m leaning towards the Olde Brick one (with a much shorter stem) because the shape and lines are so pretty and classic.

We were also able to put in two floor outlets for computer chargers, which I hope I don’t regret. We are going to paint a pattern on this original wood flooring, so I hope they don’t disrupt the pattern too much. We aren’t sure about the configuration of the desks (or maybe it will just be one) as we only work in person together a couple of days a week at most. This will also be a frequent shoot space, so whatever we do will need to be flexible and movable.

In case you are bored by the choices, I get that. While there are times when I think that I want to go more contemporary in the fixtures, as I was shopping, I found that I really only like super expensive, design-forward bespoke brands (like Lostine, Urban Electric, and Allied Maker), and they are just far more expensive than we need to spend on the lighting for this house. And since I like all the lighting to work together, it made more sense to just stick to more classic, simple, and schoolhouse rather than mix contemporary with classic. If I were designing one room at a time, I could see myself splurging on a fixture or two, but when shopping and buying for a whole house, it makes more sense to choose something that stylistically works with the house and feels classic (while being relatively simple in shape).

But I haven’t bought any fixtures YET, and who knows, I might discover a brand or style that pulls me in that direction. Schoolhouse Electric might be relaunching soon, and I’m excited to see what direction they are taking under the Hudson Valley Group lead. We’ll see!

*Photos by Kaitlin Green