Architectural and Altered Antiques
Thank you again to Architectural Digest for mentioning OGT in their article “Tour the Totally Charming New York City Home of One Young Family”. A special thanks to designer David Cafiero for acquiring the French pendant lights to showcase his design project.
Read the article: Tour the Totally Charming New York City Home of One Young Family | Architectural Digest
One may think that lighting trends in 2021 are all tending towards modern or boho styles. There is still interest in these styles, but traditional and antique lighting has a major place as well. As people have spent much more of their time at home in the last year due to the pandemic, many are looking for a much more timeless look. Also, the trend toward quality over quantity has grown in the last year. People want to surround themselves with much better quality and even luxury items so their homes are more comfortable and desirable to remain long hours.
Even though 2020 is over, COVID-19 is still with us, and dealing with it will definitely be part of our 2021 lifestyle. An easy way to change the style of a room is to change the light fixture. Come in Olde Good Things. OGT has the largest inventory of original lighting imaginable, with lights as simple as a single light pendant to ornate 18-lite chandeliers. And the best thing is that the vast majority of the lighting available at OGT is original lighting which has stood the test of time.
Of course, there is a huge inventory of industrial and commercial lighting which has a simple utilitarian look. This is also quite desirable these days, especially in kitchens and workspaces. But quality lighting is definitely a major attribute of the lighting line available at Olde Good Things. Sure there are high-end lights that have been retrieved from notable residences and landmark buildings, but there is also a huge range of fixtures that won’t break your budget if you are looking for a simple upgrade.
Here’s just a small variety of different style lights from which you can choose:
The lighting sold here is cleaned and rewired unless it was removed already in excellent ready-to-go condition. Just ask about this service with your salesperson. We have hundreds of styles of lights so look no further, you will most likely find what you are looking for in the vast lighting inventory of Olde Good Things.
The kitchen and dining areas are two of the most important spaces in the home for combining ambience and functionality with lighting. They are the hearth of the home, the space everyone is drawn to, the area of nourishment for body and soul. Logically speaking, creating this resonance in kitchen and dining areas involves planning, particularly in relation to dining room tables, kitchen islands, and countertops.
Careful measurement of spacing and clearance is everything in making your lighting add to the overall ambience, organization, and spaciousness of your kitchen and dining areas.
For dining areas, consider how the table synchronizes with your lighting. Linear suspension lighting or multi-light pendant light fixtures go well with long dining tables which are almost always rectangular or oval-shaped. Chandelier lighting and single pendants are the best illuminations for square and round dining tables, with the light fixture centered over the table. Small rowed pendant lighting works, as well.
The overhead lighting should be spaced to leave an equal distance on the sides of the table is square or round, and an equal distance (about 6 inches) at each end of the table is long.
The entire drop of the fixture should be 28 inches to 36 inches from the bottom of the fixture to the table surface. Generally, in rooms with 8-foot ceilings, around 30 in. is optimal. You can add 3 in. if the ceiling is higher than this.
To space pendant lighting across kitchen islands and dining counters, first measure the island or counter surface. Measure the diameter of each light fixture/pendant. Add the diameters. Subtract the result from the length of the surface. Add “1” to the total number of your fixtures to account for spacing and the ends of the surface. So, if you have “4” pendants, use the number “5”. Now divide the subtracted result by this number. This will give you the length of spacing between fixtures.
Use the same formula for L-shaped bars. For a Kegger (corner) bar or two L-shapes attached by a 45 degree joint, use the formula for all three sides. Lighting for a U-shaped bar can follow the “U” shape, or you can space the pendants or fixtures in a straight line by measuring across the diameter.
For the drop of the light fixture (s), hang smaller fixtures 66 in. to 72 in. from floor to bottom of the fixture. Fixtures hung over islands, countertops, and tables allow a little bit of play in clearance because no one will be walking directly underneath, but you also want the fixtures to equally spread an appropriate amount of light for eating or working on your surface.
If you are starting from scratch in purchasing a light fixture for a kitchen or dining room, decide what your options are. A single chandelier or overhead pendants can be grouped directly over tables for dining or working on tasks, while sconces, ambient, and accent lighting are affixed to walls or hung from remote corners. You will need to ensure first that you have the electrical wiring necessary in these areas unless you also wish to bring in an electrician.
Come visit one of our Olde Good Things locations or view our selection online to select your ideal chandelier, pendant lighting, wall sconces, and other vintage lighting for home and commercial spaces.
A Short But Sweet History of Chandeliers
Classic Bell Jar Pendant Lighting Instills a Vintage Eclectic Edge
The Assembly Design Studio designers of Ledger, a local restaurant and bar on New England’s North Shore, envisioned a “rough restoration” of the historic Salem Savings Bank — a place where customers could relax in a contemporary dining space and absorb the colorful history of Salem.
Salem Savings was erected in 1818 and is the second oldest incorporated savings bank in America. Notable bank customers of bygone days include Salem-born Nathaniel Hawthorne, dark romantic author of The Scarlet Letter, and Alexander Graham Bell, who patented the first telephone.
History comes in many flavors at this modern eatery. Regional cuisine is on the menu, inspired by traditional Colonial New England cooking techniques and local fish, meat, and produce. Local fare, cocktails mixed behind a leathered white macaubus granite bar, and fresh seafood from the oyster bar are offered in an authentic vintage industrial atmosphere. The restaurant’s decor was formed from the existing raw materials of the historic building, accentuated with reclaimed materials and distinctive pieces of architectural salvage. In the entry, visitors will walk through a glass and metal vestibule which showcases the original plaster ceiling and a custom 82” chandelier. A bank teller window adds to the ambience as guests enter the dining area, where a repurposed communal white oak table provides seating for 22. A contemporary wall crafted from metal safety box doors lends an industrial edge to the dining area, while a bank vault houses the walk-in refrigerator.
Exposed iron beams and rough brick and wood architecture provided a raw palette for the designers of Ledger to work with. Custom charred wood planking was incorporated into the design, a material reminiscent of Salem’s powerful and dark history which includes the Witch Trials and Great Fire of 1914. Other authentic details include distressed leather barstools, tufted banquettes, tile from the 1930s, and historic bank ledgers used for artistic display.
Ledger’s sophisticated vintage holophane lighting hails from the 1920s era and was supplied by Olde Good Things. The soft ambience of the fixtures offers a stark contrast to the lofty reclaimed wood inset on the ceiling and exposed iron beams. Our industrial Holophane light fixtures are sourced from factories across the Northeast and are a reminder of the Golden Age of “scientific illumination”. OGT’s extensive selection of Holophane fixtures from the 20s and 30s is salvaged and restored in our shop.
Besides their widespread usage in industry, the luminaires are ideal for contemporary commercial usage to illuminate a space without glare or dark spots. They are very popular in auction houses and amongst reclamation connoisseurs for their economical and efficient dispersion of light, along with the historic magnetism of their design.
Shop all Holophane online, here.
For questions about our Designer discount, view here.
