Bright lights causing a headache

 There is a scene in fight club where the narrator walks into his dilapidated home to find people everywhere working autonomously and vigorously different aspects of project mayhem.  "The house has become a living, breathing entity" he comments. This scene reflects pretty well what is happening right now in my father's old house.

There are now five teams of contractors on-site, with a sixth team starting today and a seventh in the days after, plus an eighth and ninth to arrive at a yet unspecified date. Progress is fast; surprisingly fast, and it is great to see thing show the initial signs of falling into place.

Lounge and dinging before...

...and now

Hall before...

... and now

Old crowded kitchen before...

... and it's conversion into a breakfast bar

Boxy master bedroom has been opened up

No, really, it's a bathroom!

But with a total of nine contractors to co-ordinate and monitor, I'm suffering a little bit! Every contractor requires a bit of attention. And progress is so fast that important decisions are being asked of me quite early. Like for example last week's headache; lighting.

Lighting is one of those things that you rarely think about. You'll almost never notice good lighting, it will just blend in. However, I guarantee that you will notice bad lighting! You have to think about several aspects when you're considering lighting. Firstly, the total illumination in watts that the room needs; next the position of the lights to achieve this level of light; and then what type of light (e.g. pendant, chandelier, flush, track, recessed or wall lights). What's more thinking about the  lights is only half of the equation; you then have to work out where the switches go and in what order so that the whole setup is intuitive. It might all sound quite trivial, but when you are doing a complete renovation including total rewiring, you are basically starting from scratch. While there are guidelines for some of these aspects (e.g. total illumination that a room needs; 15-25 watts per square meter), many of them are personal decisions.

Looking  at the pictures, you might be thinking it's a bit early to think about lighting. But actually no it's not. The electricians are doing the wiring at the moment , and the wires have to come out in the right places - so it is necessary to know already where the lights will be and how they will connect to switches. Plus where your plug sockets will be. If you don't know where you want to go, you'll end up somewhere you don't like; I'm learning that is particularly true of construction.