Lighting in an Oddly-Shaped Space | One Room Challenge: Week Three

Welcome back to my half bath reno for the One Room Challenge where this week we’re talking lighting! If I’m honest, this was a tough week! I made a lot of progress but I’m behind where I wanted to be at this point, and honestly the isolation of the pandemic and all the missed events and connections with friends really hit me hard this week for the first time. That’s just a reality of old-house renovation (everything takes longer than you think) and of living in a global pandemic. But you know what? We pick ourselves back up, we dust ourselves back off (literally, there’s drywall dust everywhere), and we look to the light at the end of the tunnel which in this case is literally lighting. If you missed any of the other posts you can check them out here:

Week One: Before Photos & Moodboard
Week Two: Demo & Paint

This was the weirdest space in my house to light which is saying something considering the number of rooms that had no overhead lighting but wall sconces instead! For one thing, this is the only room in the house with no windows. Next, while I was able to swap out the weird existing fixtures in most rooms, the placement of this junction box right next to the curve of the sloped ceiling made options pretty limited here. Finally, the T-shape of the room means that without a vanity light, someone standing at the mirror is blocking the light with their body. Definitely not ideal for doing skincare, makeup, or shaving.

So as I mentioned last week, my dad helped me work some magic and add two wall sconces to the vanity. Initially I was hoping to do a more standard light over the vanity so as not to crowd the wall but the odd shape made it impossible to centre something above the mirror. Instead, I found these two tall sconces for a really great price and I’m really happy with them! They’re glamorous and oversized and I think they’re really going to make the bathroom feel special. Please excuse my rudimentary SketchUp skills, this isn’t a perfect rendition of the vanity but I think it helps to give the idea.

For the ceiling fixture I went with this semi flush mount schoolhouse fixture, inspired by Daniel Kanter’s Bluestone Cottage Kitchen reno. I think it’s both classic and timeless and complements the space without taking attention from the vanity. It spreads and diffuses light much better than the old spot-light style fixture did (so much so that I had to photograph it off to really show it), but I still found it hard to see what I was painting when I got into the corners which really reaffirmed my decision to add the sconces.

Please cross your fingers for me that I can get the tiling done this week, then I feel like all the rest of the jobs are fun jobs - at least for me! Keep following along with my progress over on my Instagram and follow along with the other participants over on the One Room Challenge blog.