Lighting · May 2026
Start with Lighting: The Rule That Changed Our Renovation
Learn why lighting decisions must come before paint, furniture, or flooring in any renovation — especially in a historic home with 10-foot ceilings.
Michelle Wharton shares what went wrong in their historic bathroom pendant lighting plan, what they chose instead, and the specific fixtures that finally worked.
Michelle Wharton explains why bauhaus lighting kept winning in her 1890s Charleston home — and which bauhaus pendant lights she'd actually recommend for historic interiors.
If your home has 10-foot ceilings and you're buying fixtures designed for 8-foot ceilings, your house is going to look like an afterthought.
In Charleston, the side porch is called a piazza. It's a defining feature of the single house — a long, narrow porch that runs the full leng
We had a builder-grade flush mount in the dining room for eight months. It worked, technically. But every time I sat down for dinner I felt
Our main hallway is 48 inches wide and 32 feet long. It's the spine of the house. For the first year, we had a single overhead fixture at on
The most consistent mistake I see in historic homes: the pendant light that's too small for the room. Here's why it happens and what to do i
The hardest room in the house to light well is the small one. Large rooms are forgiving — you have space for multiple sources, different hei
Everyone who visits our house comments on the ceilings first. Plaster medallions, 10-foot height, hairline cracks that took us three rounds
The mudroom is not the place to spend money on statement fixtures. It is the place to spend money on practical ones.
This question comes up more than any other. Here's the answer.
Small rooms have a lighting paradox: they need enough light to function, but too much overhead light makes them feel like the inside of a ca
A statement pendant in the wrong room reads as imported. In the right room, it looks like it was always supposed to be there. The difference
We painted this room three times. The fourth color was the one I should have started with.
Wallpaper in a historic home is a decision that requires more homework than wallpaper in any other context. Get it right and the room feels
We had $400 and a guest arriving in three weeks. Here's exactly what we did.
Holiday decor in a historic home is about editing, not adding.
The house had a room we called 'the library' with exactly zero bookshelves.
One table lamp in the corner showed me what the room was missing.
The rule isn't 'match everything.' The rule is 'match nothing by accident.'
Our windows are 9 feet tall with original wavy glass. Standard curtain rods were never going to work.
The dining room needed storage and presence. Built-ins solved both problems.
Learn what nobody tells you about buying and living in a historic home — from the inspection process to the first year of surprises, costs, and hard-won wisdom.
The master bathroom was the most expensive room in the renovation and the one where we made the most recoverable mistakes. I'm writing this
The exterior of a historic home can be ruined by the wrong lights. We spent a long time on this decision.
Discover the real lessons from renovating a kitchen in an 1892 Charleston single house — budget surprises, layout decisions, hardware choices, and what we'd redo.
See what it really takes to refinish original heart pine floors in an 1890s home — grit sequence, finish choice, costs, and the mistakes we'd avoid next time.
Every hardware decision in this kitchen came down to one question: will this look right in forty years? Polished chrome won't. Brushed nicke
When we bought the house, the entry hall had been painted the same shade of greige approximately six times. Not six coats of the same color
We repainted it four times. The lighting went through three iterations. Here's the full documented process.
I painted it dark green and added two lamps. Best decision we made.
See the complete before and after of our Victorian parlor restoration — original plaster repair, period-appropriate paint, lighting, and the decisions that made it work.