How many blog readers does it take to pick a light bulb ?

While we wait for the pre start variations to be priced up, it is fairly quiet on the house planning front.  We’ve had a change in pre-construction consultants and apparently everyone working on our plans is on holidays.  Another week like this one and I’m going to have to go shopping again.  (See Patience and Building.)

Here are a few bits and pieces we’ve been thinking about:

1.  Changing the front door to make the most of a good looking security screen door.  We want a screen door so that we can open up the solid doors and let the breeze through the house.  We like this screen door from Entanglements:  We changed our front door from the door on the left to the door on the right:

Webb and Brown-Neaves’ interior designer recommended glass over a solid door to keep our entry light.  We think it is good advice and it will have the added advantage that we will be able to appreciate the fancy screen door from both inside and outside the house.  I know that some people prefer to be able to hide behind their front door, but a tall front fence, clever lighting and landscaping should be able to prevent sticky-noses from seeing into our house.  Worst case scenario is that we have to install blinds on the inside of the front door.

2.  The number of pendant lights above our kitchen bench.

An attempt at showing the correct relative scale for our kitchen bench, pendant lights (36 cm diameter) and ceiling height.

For a 3 metre long bench, many advise 3 pendants but my favourite pendants for the bench are quite chunky and three doesn’t seem right to me.  So my husband put a life-size picture of the pendants up on our television screen and I got out my trusty measuring tape to get a feel for the bench size.  I had just about decided that two pendants would be OK when some sensible person on the HomeOne Forum reminded me that I also need to consider the light projecting onto the bench in order to achieve consistent lighting across the bench surface instead of strange shadows.  Back to square one.  There are so many variables at play here that I’ve decided to do nothing!  Our lighting plan remains unchanged with 2 pendant lights and my fingers are crossed that the down lights in and around the kitchen will make the question of pendant number aesthetic rather than mathematic.

3.  With recent motivation from various sources, including my own blog post about taking photos of the building process, I’ve decided it’s time to get over my fear of photography.  So far the good pictures on this blog belong to someone else.  I’d like to be able to take photos of our house that I don’t have to apologise for.  Here’s the result of my first practice session.

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified folding stool, made in Brazil by Butzke.

When this little baby finds its way to House By The Water it will either be sitting beside the bath, keeping a glass of wine upright, or snuggling next to a comfy sofa waiting for a cup of tea.