The kitchen ceiling fan:
Photo circa August 2010
has been on The List for some time now. My biggest grievance is that it was mounted as if it was a standard light fixture, i.e., with completely insufficient support for a ~60 inch dia. ceiling fan. We couldn’t turn the fan on even if we wanted to, because it wobbled precariously. Not to mention, we don’t really want to fling dust around the cooking area.
Push came to shove, as many things do around here, when something broke. This time, it was a light bulb (for the second time) — the glass broke off of the metal bulb socket, leaving the metal screwed into the light fixture. This happened before, but this time we couldn’t get it out (even with turning off the circuit and using needle nose pliers). Since there wasn’t any love lost on the light fixture, we started shopping, and it came down.
Gross.
Cute!
We gave consideration to canister lights, but decided against them because we plan, someday, to redo the kitchen, layout included. Canisters are a lot of work if you’re not sure you know where you’ll want them long term.
We also looked at some of the beautiful fixtures at Hubbardton Forge. But those are pricey, and again, a lot about our kitchen is done with the “this’ll be nice for the next 5-10 years” mindset. So off we went to Lowe’s to see what they had.
After some wandering, and some debating, we brought home this Allen + Roth fixture. It was significantly less expensive than other options we were considering, and with 3 CFL bulbs, we figured it would make a nice, bright work space.
Not bad!
The CFL bulbs do take a minute to warm up when you turn it on, so at night it takes a minute to get up to its full brightness. Admittedly, not my favorite feature. But it coordinates pretty well with the existing hardware and fixtures, including the light over the table, and definitely does the job. We still need to do just a little patching in the ceiling, since the cutout is a smidge too big, but that’s just minor cosmetic work.
