Small Home Gazette, Fall 2021
Creative Solutions: The Right Light
Brad and Nancy wanted more light in their St. Paul bungalow’s dining room. The chandelier over the table certainly cast enough light to eat by, but the warm glow from the period-appropriate Steuben Glass reproduction shades left the rest of the room dimly lit. The east-facing windows did not help much, especially during evening meals. When used as a temporary office, there was barely enough light to read documents spread across the table. The only other illumination came from a small wall sconce above a sideboard buffet tucked into a corner of the room. Their solution involved a bit of a journey.
The new box beam ceiling treatment with small fixtures at each intersection look historical and allow the dining room to be used in several ways—from an intimate dinner to a large family gathering to a temporary home office.
Adding a table or floor lamp or two would have helped, but the 11-by-13-foot room’s tight quarters made the addition of furniture an impossibility—especially during family meals when the table is expanded with an extra leaf or two. To get more lighting in the room, it would have to come from above.
Box beams on the ceiling were a key design feature of Arts & Crafts era homes, including bungalows. Years ago, Brad added painted box beams to their living room, so adding the same to the dining room seemed an easy choice. He designed a grid of beams that resulted in four intersections. The beams would conceal the wiring for a fixture at each intersection. Historical style and the room’s small size dictated a diminutive fixture with a low-wattage, bare bulb.
With a plan in mind, Brad set to work searching local salvage and retail stores and the Internet to find the right fixture. “I wanted the fixture to be simple in form and small enough to comfortably fit the dimensions of the box beams,” Brad explains. Most shops had no clue what a “beam light“ was; instead showing Brad numerous styles of pendant lights. He eventually found several options to consider—if price was no concern. Staying within their budget narrowed the field to one choice.
The width of the beams measures 6 5/8 inches, so a small-diameter, 4 1/4-inch fixture was selected, which barely covers a small diameter electrical box. The simple profile of the fixture also matches the home’s Arts & Crafts style.
The owner of Turn of the Century Lighting in Toronto understood what they were looking for and had just made a similar set of fixtures for another client. Brad says, “We do not feel like we settled; we are very happy with what we purchased.”
Finding the right bulb also involved an extensive search. “The bulbs needed to be LEDs to save energy; attractive enough to be seen as bare bulbs; and powerful enough to brighten the space; yet dimmable for other situations,” Brad says. “We wanted them to produce an amber color throughout the ‘dimming range’ to complement the shades of the sconce and chandelier.” The other limiting factor was to find a bent-tip candelabra-shaped bulb with a medium-size base to fit the fixture they had selected.
Finding a dimmable LED bulb that looked vintage and cast the right color light proved a challenge.
This time, local big box store The Home Depot came through. They selected a 5.5 watt LED bulb made by Philips. It does not produce quite as nice of a shade of amber as the Edison-style bulb they tried, but the energy savings made the Philips bulb irresistible.
Brad and Nancy love how the beam lights completely changed the dining room’s mood. “They illuminate the ceiling in a subtle way; create lovely shadow lines on and around the beams; and highlight the stenciling under the perimeter beams.”
The box beams and new fixtures look entirely period appropriate. With the fixtures in place, the amount of light in their dining room can now be adapted to fit the room’s various uses. And being able to use rooms in multiple ways is every small house owner’s dream!
Other Examples?
If you know of other creative solutions to make bungalows more livable, send them to us at mail@bungalowclub.net. Whether they save space; provide modern convenience with an historically-appropriate appearance; or simply make the best of a difficult situation, we would love to share them in the Small Home Gazette.
