Submitted by smokeymacncheese t3_ykt0kh in jerseycity
Hi all,
Moving from Australia to Jersey City and currently apartment hunting. I noticed most of the apartments (walk ups or "luxury") tend to not have recessed lighting in the living room and bedrooms. All my life I've lived with recessed lighting and was wondering how everyone lights up their apartments at night - or if anyone has any creative renter friendly ways of replicating ceiling lights.
Thanks!
I guess this is a sign to fill my apartment up with lamps...
I love lamp!
Candles
Usually for apartments that don't have ceiling lights, there's one power socket that's controlled by the light switch. You would want to put a large floor lamp like a torchiere there.
Bonfire?
My apartment has recessed lights and I do not like the even illumination they provide, so I prefer to use multiple table and floor lamps for a cozier vibe! If you use smart bulbs, you can turn them all on at the same time from your Google home and/or phone and very convenient.
A shit ton of fireflies
A lot of these apartments were built without junction boxes so no overhead lighting. Floor lamps are the way to go.
Overhead lights are way too harsh. Better to have some lamps and soft bulbs in any case.
Most rental places in this area don’t have recessed lighting. This is because it is legally the owner’s responsibility to change the light bulbs of the recessed lighting, and the labor cost is notoriously high in USA. If you get a floor/table lamp, it’s your own responsibility to change the light bulbs
I added recessed lighting to the condo that I owned a few years ago, when that was the look everyone wanted.
Recessed lighting comes with tradeoffs. Yes you get less wires lying around, and you can put them anywhere as long as you can run the wires in the ceiling... but the recessed lighting also acts as areas from where heat escapes, and potentially noise.
If I had to do it today, I would use one of those LED things that look like recessed lighting but are not.
I grew up in a lighting family, my dad was a lighting sales rep, and I studied industrial Design. I hate recessed lighting. It's an awful, no brain, cookie cutter approach to lighting. I do like having a central room light, often a ceiling fan fixture, and then you can accessorize with lamps. What you might like best is a "torchiere", a bright light on a stand that points to the ceiling so that all the light in the room is reflected down. Very soft and comfortable, some even have a reading lamp secondary light on the side of the pole.
https://www.amazon.com/Torchiere-Standing-Adjustable-Stepless-Dimmable/dp/B08YRC5FXH
I agree with this for recreational areas (bedrooms/living room). Ceiling fan + lamps are ideal. For task based areas (kitchen for example), I think recessed lighting is often very practical and then accessorize with under cabinet or whatever makes sense for the space.
IMO a ceiling fan fixture, under-cabinet lights, and perhaps a pendant over the sink is far superior to cans. Not least because the downward pointed cans don't shed light INTO the cabinets so you can see what's in there! I have a 2nd row of glass door 18" cabs over a row of 30", and the ceiling fan lights them up beautifully, as well as making the kitchen more comfortable in warm weather.
Hmm do you have any examples of LED lights which look like recessed lighting but aren't?
Oooh that's interesting
I don’t like pendants in the kitchen for cleaning reasons. Things splash (or just flour lands on it) and either you clean them which is a time consuming PITA or you’re gross.
Recessed lights are far enough that occasional cleaning is enough as they won’t accumulate much.
A torchiere lamp with the highest wattage bulb you can use. Casting light off the ceiling will help illuminate the room and require fewer lamps.
If you're getting flour on your pendants I would say they're too low! In my experience the ceiling of a kitchen gets grosser than anything else because of the rising grease from inadequate range venting.
>it is legally the owner’s responsibility to change the light bulbs of the recessed lighting
Maybe I'm misinformed, but I've literally never heard of that being a thing.
Even if that’s true, I wouldn’t be surprised if installation costs are more of an issue than anything else. Recessed lights are generally more complicated to install than other types of fixtures.
In older buildings, they can be more difficult to retrofit than traditional ceiling mounted fixtures.
Meanwhile, most high rise apartments have concrete slab ceilings. In that case, you need to build a soffit or a false ceiling to house a recessed fixture, which adds to costs and reduces ceiling heights.
The concrete slab issue is also why many high rise apartments have very few lighting fixtures (of any type) built into the ceiling in bedrooms and living rooms. Without some type of false ceiling, the electrical stuff needs to be built into the slab during construction in order to avoid having an ugly exposed conduit running along the ceiling.
One difference here is that there will be socket outlets with wall switches. Its normal to have floor standing lamps plugged in instead of permanent lighting.
It’s also because the ceilings of most luxury buildings are concrete slabs in the bedroom and living room. I have recessed lighting in the hallway, kitchen and bathroom because they had the ability to do it due to the gwb ceiling used to conceal the sprinkler branch piping
Not sure if these exist in Australia but we have these neat things called lamps, and you can screw in a lightbulb which lights your room.
The cool thing about lamps is that you can put them anywhere so you have more control over the lighting.
I just moved to JC too and looking for an Aussie husband
Do you have lamps?
That's fair and does make sense. Tbh I just assumed it was a cost saving measure and also increases the time of building wiring every apartment with overhead lighting. And since there is no regulation saying you need to do it and most people are happy without they never bothered.
I also found it weird that in the bathrooms there's not a drain in the middle of the room in case water over flows (other than the drain in the tub/shower)
This seems like the solution thanks !
The floor drain in a bathroom is more of a commercial thing than residential thing and there is no code requiring it AFAIK.
A lot of buildings do actually have a light fixture in the living room, just not recessed, there’s typically nothing in the bedrooms though.
I have so many
Unfortunately we do not have this light making device in Australia. Without ceiling light we are forced to capture a bunch of fireflies to light up our living rooms. Luckily the buildings in Australia account for this and install ceiling lights because catching these fireflies is a bit of a pain.
Sad thing about fireflies is you can't really control the lighting situation as they have a mind of their own.
I'll bring back a lamp next time I visit to help my fellow underdeveloped brethren.
sentientfragilebean t1_iuv07km wrote
Lamp??