Hi sc42355 - that is great info, thank you. We bought a Queen Anne in Eaglemont that had plenty of room but the house needed TLC, updating, and repurposing of rooms (so for example there was a very large formal dining, separate sitting, and then another separate large billiards room - but a back-of-the-house not-very-functional kitchen...). What started as a small reno has become pretty significant - our own money pit! - but not an extension. We are replacing the heating, going back to floorboards, redoing all the paint and paper, shifting the kitchen and doing a full new kitchen, new bathroom, two ensuites and powder room, creating a pantry and a linen room, and redoing the upstairs into a master suite. We also have an original French tile roof which isn't yet on the agenda but that tip for tradies there will definitely be useful. We wanted to update the house also - so the style is more transitional than restoration, so we are removing the heavy curtains which should give us better access to the beautiful windows. I will dig out some photos. 1 - In terms of the coordination of building work, we are using Dale from Genjusho Building Design, who has been great, particularly as we have been pretty organic in terms of having a locked down plan on the work required (it evolves...). 2 - The heating that has gone in is hydronic (we had to go all the way down into the floors to sort the floorboards, so were able to take advantage of that process to get the piping in for the heating). 3 - Lighting as you know is the current challenge but early on we identified a pendant manufacturer called WEP who we wanted to get one (possibly two - Lora and Renata styles) from - http://www.weplight.com/ although these are more modern lights they sit well in the space. Lighting continues and with the high ceilings we are also putting in LEDs just about everywhere and relying on pendants more for the aesthetics. Generally BrightGreen have been the uniformly recommended LED to provide the truest light quality. 4 - depending on the age of your property you might eventually find like us that the gas line (ie the one that links out to the mains on the street) needs to be upgraded. Not a big deal but as always extra cost and good to integrate with any significant garden redesign work if you are digging up a fair bit (or jackhammering up concrete as we are) to get the new pipe in. 5 - We didn't have enough of the original baltic floorboards throughout the downstairs to use - they'd been cut through over the years unfortunately - so we ended up getting replacement wide boards for the floor. We ended up going for a hardwood rather than the soft baltic, and are using spotted gum which means we won't need to stain it, just seal it. We found Urban Salvage in Spotswood good for the wood searching, also had Shiver Me Timbers recommended. 6 - The kitchen and cabinetry we are using Peter Gill who has been very good and spans the traditional-transitional spectrum well. http://www.kitchensbypetergill.com.au/ 7 - The paint and paper work has been a challenge for us also - the walls are fragile and a lot (A LOT) of prep work required to get either paint or paper (or both) to come out looking high quality given the age of the building, and the tendency of the walls to keep shifting. We are using JN painting & decorating. We also had to put in a picture rail to avoid banging hooks into these walls - both because patching isn't easy and because the walls wouldn't necessarily hold a hook in the same way modern plaster does. The labour on this takes a while. The rails are from classicarchitraves.com.au. 8 - We are putting back in fireplace mantles to match the era, sourcing these from Agnews. 9 - We had to source a lot of tiles given the refit of bathrooms/kitchen/laundry and these comes from a variety of sources - Lifestile in Camberwell, Tierno Tiles in Prahran, Urban Edge Ceramics in Richmond (where we found a particularly great pale green handmade subway tile), Artedomus in Richmond and Schots in Clifton Hill. We are also getting a garden plan done - this will be a much longer exercise than this reno but the plot is 1500 sqm so we wanted to have an overall plan to guide us. cheers C

They look great in that photo, Northstar! Works beautifully. Will be fine over your bench. Didn't realise how large your p really space will be. Wow! No, if you replace pendants that have staggered drops, the fittings are completely removed and new pendant fittings are installed in their place. The electrician just shortens the drops without cutting them & the extra lenth is hidden away in ceiling.

So, what color did you eventually choose? I am really interested because the house we have just bought has similar color ceilings. I was also wondering about the color of the light fittings. I think that I will get some color changing LED light bulbs and have them installed all around the house. I like them more because you can both use them as a regular bulb or change the color to any you would like. It is also possible to control them using an app on my phone, making it so easy to control them. Now I think that it would be the most reasonable decision if I installed white bulb fittings so they look good with all the colors the bulb can make.

You will find that the cheaper light fittings that include bulbs will probably use less energy efficient bulbs that will burn out faster and need replacement. There are also some brands of cheap LED bulbs (such as Kogan) on the market that don't perform (or last) as long as their more expensive cousins. If you have cathedral ceilings then I would suggest that you buy quality bulbs that have some guarantee as to the number of hours they will last as changing downlight bulbs in a cathedral ceiling can be challenging when they get up high. Cathredral ceilings are better with the tiltable downlights as they are very directional, and it would be good to have some control where the light actually falls. You don't want to make a feature of the downlights so they should match the ceiling colour. If you have a white ceiling then go with the white lights. If you are lucky enough to have a timber ceiling then go with the brushed nickel as the white downlights will contrast too much. I would strongly recommend against using downlights with a cathedral ceiling as you have no roof space, and the holes in your cathedral ceiling will make heat loss and heat gain much worse if you care about sustainability. Cathedral ceilings always look best with pendants and uplights to make a feature of the ceiling by bouncing light off the sloping ceiling, rather than shining harsh downlights down, which actually helps conceal the cathedral ceiling. I suggest you find a cathedral ceiling with downlights and look at the fitting while it is on to see how glarey they can look. Best of luck with your research, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls