Internet Shopping Resources - Modern Light Fixtures, Furniture & Accessories

I've found a lot of great websites for purchasing lighting fixtures, furniture and accessories online - look no further:

Lumens Light + Living has lighting fixtures as well as furnishings and accessories. They have a nice feature which suggests fixtures similar to the one you are looking at- I found a lot of fixtures I liked using this tool. Free shipping on orders of $50 or more.

YLighting is the premier source for contemporary and modern lighting with free shipping.

2Modern sells lighting fixtures, furniture, accessories and gifts. Great prices and free shipping on orders of $50 or more.

Form + Function has contemporary lighting at very competitive prices and free shipping on orders of $50 or more.

Stardust is the website of a Sonoma, California modern design retail showroom. They sell light fixtures, furniture, accessories and gifts, and offer low prices and free shipping.

Before Gallery - First Renovation - 1st Floor

Below is a view of the Dining Room & Kitchen from the Living Room. The back wall of the house - with the sliding doors and kitchen windows - will move 13 feet to enlarge the kitchen and create a new Family Room. We plan to reuse the sliding door and kitchen windows, as we installed these during the first renovation.

A view through the Kitchen to the side entrance from the Dining Room.

We did a lot of the work ourselves on the first renovation. My husband, Tim, and our friend, Jeff, did all of the rough framing. We sub-contracted the plumbing, electrical, and drywall.  I put together the Ikea kitchen cabinets, and we installed them and the Fireslate counter tops ourselves. I designed the brackets for the bar top and had a local metal shop fabricate them. We did some of the finish carpentry ourselves, and hired others to do the rest. We did all of the painting, and it felt like we painted every weekend for months!

Dining Room

Looking back at the Living Room from the Kitchen.

The arched doorway to the Foyer had been covered up when we bought the house. We restored the opening, and the archway worked perfectly with the rest of the design.

Living Room

Design Journal - Our First Renovation

The idea for the first renovation was to open up the interior and bring the living spaces together. Bedrooms had been added to allow a rental unit on each floor, and we wanted to bring the house back to its single family roots.

1st Floor Plan - Before

I removed a wall between the living and dining rooms, and added windows and glass doors to bring in the lovely wooded views. I moved the kitchen to the center of the house, so it could become part of the other living areas. I opened the foyer back up to the rest of the house to create a more formal entry, and I moved the pantry and bath areas adjacent to the side entrance.

This design is all about curves. I wanted the interior spaces to open up and flow inside the rectangular form of house. I wanted to subvert the rigidity of the typical house plan to create spaces that were visually interesting. And I tried to bring the idea of the curve into all of the details that I designed - from the bar top, to the archways, and even the shelves in the kitchen.

1st Floor Plan - After

Before Gallery - Our First Renovation

These photos show the house when we bought it and our first renovation project:

This is the front of the house not long after we bought it.

It's still hard to take a photo of the front of the house- there are so many trees.

The back of the house - before

One of the first things we did was build a deck. We were living in the basement (tenants occupied the 2nd floor) and needed a place to hang out.

We installed 8' wide sliding doors for access to the back yard, and new casement windows where we planned to relocate the kitchen.

We removed a wall that separated the living room from a bedroom and framed out the new beam as an elongated archway. The adjoining spaces became living and dining areas.













New floor to ceiling openings (to be filled with panes of insulated glass) frame views of the trees.

Drywall!

Installing the Ikea kitchen cabinets

Demolition portrait

Before

This is the 1st floor plan of my house - a weird cape code built around 1920. It was divided into three apartments when we bought it in 1999 . We lived in and renovated the first floor while the existing tenants still lived upstairs. In retrospect, not the smartest thing for an architect working in another state and a first year tenure track professor to embark on. But, it was a labor of love, and with the help of friends we made a great place to live.

Ten years later, we and our two daughters are outgrowing our home. So naturally I'm doing what any architect would - adding on instead of looking for a larger house.

Below is a view of the dining room from 2002 - not long after we finally completed the first floor (and our first daughter was born.)

Hello

I'm starting an addition to my home and thought I'd share my resources, thoughts and ideas along the way. I love modern design, and if you do too, please stay tuned.