Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Chapter 25 – Let there be light (Day 58)

They say that lighting is one of the most cost effective ways to create ambience in a room. When doing the major design work we had generally agreed on the location and type of lighting to about a 90% degree of confidence. We figured we would be fine spending 500~1000$ if needed.

So here were are below with our saintly Sakamoto-san who had pre-booked a lightning consultant at the Odelic showroom. Just want to note here that these consultants are products experts not necessarily design experts. Although very knowledgeable she was really there to listen to us, answer questions and provide options. The nice thing here is that she’s not trying to push a product on you.

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There are thousands of options, from tube lights, LED, incandescent, fluorescent, halogen, pendants, standing lamps, down lights, directional down lights, sensors, warm light, cool light, neutral/broad/narrow ranges. and we have not even started talking about style. Below is one change we wanted for our bedroom as we can’t stand bedrooms with the bright round fluorescent lamp in the middle of the room. We’ve opted for more indirect lighting which will also be adjustable.

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In terms of other changes:

  • Added more Exterior lights with sensor near entrance and windows for safety.
  • Added LED lights in hallways nooks so they can be kept on almost all the time but consuming only 5% of energy. Added Down light in Hallway as well to highlight wall decorations.
  • Added 3 pendants over Kitchen Dining Counter. Added 3 pendants over Dining table.
  • Added lighting directed at ceiling in Living Room.

The damage has been an increase of about 1500$ in suggested retail price. I’m expecting a 50% discount, so it will come to about 750$ extra.

2 comments:

  1. Hello,

    I've been following your blog for the past few months and have really enjoyed your posts -- really informative and well-written. My husband and I have also been in Japan for ten years and have recently thought about building or buying a home, so it's great to be able to get a vicarious preview of the process.

    On a professional note, I do the online marketing for a new real estate website, realestate.co.jp. We list houses and apartments for sale and for rent in Japan. We have a section of the website called "Expert Insight" where we invite industry insiders to write articles about their area of expertise.

    I was hoping that you might be interested in writing a short article (or a series of articles) on your experience building your house in Kichijoji (or any other real-estate topic of your choice). We don't pay for content, but we do have good traffic and would be happy to provide a link to your blog, in exchange for a link from your site. I think a lot of our users would be really interested in your experience.

    If you'd like to follow up, please contact me at nancy at gplusmedia dot com (obviously, no spaces in that email address).

    Thank you and looking forward to your next post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Nancy,
    Sorry for the late reply.
    About your offer, I barely have enough time. But I'm happy to provide a link to your site and vice versa. Let me know.
    Flattered that I would be considered an "expert" as I'm really just sharing the fruits of my research and experience. I'll send you an email separately.

    ReplyDelete