Footcandles, lumens, and other productive distraction activities

Since we signed with our builder about a month ago, we've been going through the various stages of loan approval. In parallel, our plans have been going through the various stages of City planning approval. Both processes appear to be nearing completion. All we need is a nice juicy appraisal value to secure the big fat loan we want - and the final rubber stamp from the city. Both should come through in the next three or four weeks.

I am itching to get started. Itching! I'm mentally moving in, deciding which pictures will go where, and even which drawer the spices will go in. I've drawn up detailed sketches of all our cabinetry, accompanied by fact-based estimates of the cubic footage and hanging space we'll need for all our storage. I've made a long list of native plants. I've found a nook for a desk on the floor plan that triggered a happy couple of hours sketching alternative window plans for that corner. One day I spent an hour putting all my various notes into this nice new notebook, with little arrows to mark out the sections. It's been fun. No, really. This is my idea of fun.

Do you like the little house I drew?

SO much info

All in nice neat sections

This past week I've indulged in a new obsession: lighting plans. I really dislike cluttered lighting schemes, and I don't really like canned lights either. Which mean I particularly dislike those rooms where there are both pendants (or flushmounts, or chandeliers, you know lighting fixtures that stick out of the ceiling) and canned lights. Pick one! And I really really dislike it when that same ceiling also has a vent, and a sprinkler and a fan, and the whole thing is just cluttered with ugly utilitarian hardware. My ideal ceiling is wallpapered, or painted a lovely colour, and kept as clean as possible. Ash feels the same way, only perhaps without my level of fervour.

Musing on this, while doing a little idle Pinteresting lead me - and looking back, perhaps this was inevitable - to a deep dive into the world of lighting plans. I learned about lumens, which is the measure of how much illumination a light provides, or a room needs. You figure out how many lumens you need by multiplying the square footage of the space by the recommended foot candles. Yes, foot candles, my new favourite unit of measure. A foot candle is a measurement of light intensity, based on how much light you get one foot away from an actual candle. 

I've spent many happy hours marking up our floor plans to see how much light each space needs, then figuring out what kind of light fittings we could use to get there. There may be a few can lights but no unnecessary ones, that's for sure. Hopefully the ones we do end up with can be neatly aligned, or better yet, recessed in a shared cavity with all the other ugly utilitarian stuff. 

Gin, floor plans, good times

Illumination needs

All my big ideas

Next up - and I genuinely can't wait for this - I'm going to document all this in a presentation, along with images of the light fittings I like, and a rough cost for the whole thing. Fun times ahead! 

But first, we have the move to plan. We found a slightly charmless, over-budget house nearby with plenty of space and a redeemingly great view. So there'll be boxes to pack and label and furniture to sell and all of that will surely keep me distracted from the fact that we haven't actually started building yet.