Beach House Part 14: Come join us!

The beach house is ready!  The furniture is finished and only extra details will be added in the months (and years!) to come.  

So here it is!

  The beach and the doors opening onto the sand...

The beach house, waiting for us to return from our walk on the beach...

The garden, sheltered from the winds and the sun...

...by a lovely stone wall covered in blooms, enclosing a pond inhabited by fish, turtles and a lizard (and some rabbits nibbling the grass).

How am I getting such nice, clear photos?  With good lighting from the strip lights I found on Amazon.  These battery powered lights are taped to the underside of the shelf and turn on with a handy button.

You can see how important good lighting is in this Youtube video, where I get to turn on the sun on my beach!

Ta-da!  A dream come true!  

Letting in the light

Over the course of the winter, we decided to change some of the light fixtures in the rooms and hunted for the best options.  First:  Creature Comfort, our "luxury room", needed better than a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.  We debated the pros and cons of leaving the antique fixture but decided that if we left the two nicer ones (with the dogwood flower design in brass) in the hallway we could switch this one out (of course we saved the old fixture, it's safe and sound).  Hunting locally was fruitless but Amazon.ca finally provided the best solution:  a Savoy House Lighting semi-flush ceiling mounted fixture with a creamy/cloudy marble glass.  

Our Meadow was really the instigator for the lighting changes:  while this fixture was beautiful, our Meadow really needed better air circulation even with the 4 windows and bathroom fan.  Now, with this Kendal Lighting 3-speed fan with seperately controlled fan, guests will be able to make themselves perfectly comfortable.  It runs super-quiet and is balanced just right.  We found this one at Chatelaine Lighting in Guelph.

So where could we put the fixture we removed from the Meadow?  Again, a single, bare bulb was all that our Fox Hole had as a ceiling fixture.  It wasn't enough, the room felt "industrial" and unfinished.  Now, look at it:  this antique light with its old glass looks perfect here and raises the room's overall appearance tremendously, it's really quite surprising what a big deal it is!!

Once again we have to thank Brock Richardson of Fergus Electric.  (Brock may be reached at 519-843-3560.)  In this old house, his expertise was absolutely priceless and his know-how, problem-solving and speed were incredible to witness!!!  Without his help, we would never have accomplished all these changes.  Thank you so much, Brock! 

Embrace the light

It was an odd fact, but for some reason one of the ceiling fixtures in our parlour had been removed and the box papered over.  This made the half of the parlour closer to the windows very dim in the evenings and, while our table lamps were good for reading, the area was poorly lit for social gatherings, pleasant chats with wine glasses in hand.  So the hunt was on...

...and the box was found!

Then we travelled to Guelph and Chatelaine Lighting with the hopes of finding an appropriate fixture.  This small but absolutely filled shop was overwhelming with options so we were very fortunate when Mom spotted just the thing!  This is a Wilton Three Light Chandelier by Kichler.









Installed it looks like it has always been there!

A big thanks and round of applause to our electrician Brock Richardson of Fergus Electric (519-843-3560).  Without him, this multi-step job would have taken us days... for him it was a matter of maybe an hour, start to finish.  (Plus he did an awesome job in our basement!)  

  Now, with the new window stops (thank you so much Drew!) installed over Christmas, new quarter rounds in the bay window area and trim paint cleaned-up (as much as we could, there's wall paper under there!), our parlour is elegantly comfy cozy!