Finalising the Lighting for the Apartment

During my meeting with Million Lighting recently, to finalise by lighting selection,Edwin Strongly recommended (to the point of insisting) that I use Flos wall washers for my walls.

FLOS - Pure 2 (wall washer)

In order to convince me he got one of his lighting designers to do a lighting simulation for me. 

Wall Washer Effect without Dining Light

Wall Washer Effect with Dining Light

The lights are currently being flown in from Europe as they don't have enough stock here. There is however a problem with this light. The light as a built in Potential Meter. What that means is that the light fitting can be dimmed individually. Ie I can can have 4 lights on one track and all 4 have different lighting intensity (This is normally used especially in museums). How is this a problem you might say. Well, it's because the apartment lights will all be linked up using the MK Astral Z-Wave automation switches. If the light has a built-in Potential Meter then I can't use it with a Dimmer Switch. Ie I can't dim the lights at a touch of a button. I have to go to the light fitting and physically dim them one by one. Well I guess what I can do is set the lighting levels for these wall washer and just let them be.

Lighting Layout

On Friday, the guys at Million Lighting got back to us on their lighting fitting selection. I gave them some specific directions and left the rest up to them.  My instructions where more functional than aesthetic. 

1. "I don't have a lot of space within the false ceiling so the downlights that you specify has to be shallow. But at the same time I can't afford ERCO."

2. "I don't want to see the glare from the downlights."

3. "I want that Artemide floor lamp, you know that one with the flip up lamp shade, for the living room."

4. "I want that Skinny Artemide pendant light for the study. That one that's about 1.2/ 1.5m long and with a really slim profile. You know which one I'm taking about right?"

5. "The downlights in the bathroom has to be IP rated. I need a minimum of IP 64. IP 65 would be ideal."  

Lower floor plan

Upper floor Plan

After looking at the selection I thought to myself these fittings are really nice. They know how to specify the nice looking fittings for me. Only to realise that yes it's nice cos they specified Artemide downlight & Artemide track lights. Now I wonder how much it's gonna cost. 

Air Division Sale

2 weekends ago we popped by Air Division because we saw an ad in the papers of a sale at Air Division. Now, my friends know that I'm all for Value for Money and where do you get better Value is obviously at a Sale. I should have figured out earlier that most retail store draw you in with a "Sale" and you end up buying non sale items.

The sale items weren't that great. Instead what caught my wife's eye were 2 floor lamps. 

Wife: pointing towards the direction of the floor lamp "That lamp is quite nice. Looks industrial. Can we have that in the house?".

Me: response in my head was "Die. ARTEMIDE  lamp. Ex!" the words I spoke were "Yap that's nice, its from ARTEMIDE... its probably over a Thousand Dollars. Why don't you have a look at the price tag."

Well she checks out the price tag ($1,200 ish) and says she likes it because it feels kinda industrial and told me maybe we could get a similar light to this. 

5 mins later we walk to another side of the showroom. 

Wife: "This one is nicer. I like actually prefer this one over the other one." pointing to another floor standing lamp.

Me: response in my head was "Alamak! pick out another ARTEMIDE light". My words to her was "Its also from ARTEMIDE, just as expensive but this one is cooler. you can actually rotate the lamp shade to face it upwards."

Honestly, I am a fan of ARTEMIDE lights. I won't mind getting one but guess we have wait to see how the overall construction cost pans out. If we have some excess then maybe.

These are the 2 lights she pointed out. I've used the Artemide - Melampo (Table Lamp) before and I really like the Champagne coloured version a lot. (Artemide calls the colour Bronze)

Artemide - Tolomeo Mega Terra Floor Lamp

Artemide - Melampo (Floor Lamp)