Beautiful, Beautiful Lights

Why do we not sell these lights...other than they are too big and probably too expensive (Euro is at $1.21). Italian fixtures like these are hand blown in Murano.

These fixtures are hanging in hotels, churches and The Spanish ruler in Sardinia. No how-to's today....let's just gawk.

If you want to import this type of light, you would have to rewire for 120v electricity

Pro Ranges

Every once in awhile, I like to compare the top companies in a category. Today is 30 inch pro ranges.

Wolf DF304

Like: Great simmer capability, great clock interface, dual fuel (industry term as electricity is not a fuel), two convection fans, self cleaning.

Dislike: $5599 is the highest price, but still Wolf is an excellent unit.

Viking VGCC5304BSS

Like: Great name, product works

Dislike: No special features for a $4389 unit, not even self cleaning. To clarify, the unit has 15k burners, which simmer ok and has convection...but nothing else

Capital GCR305

Like: $3399, 25,000 BTU venter burner(competitors are 15,000), 5 burner top, convection

Dislike: Unknown commodity to some degree, no self cleaning

Art Light

Welcome to The Colonnade in Sardinia. I love this place. They have their own art gallery, among other amenities.

Have a look:

Now look at the light...

They use LED. Throughout this blog I refer to heat exfiltration, which is a fancy way of saying incandescent throws 300 degrees of heat. You can't touch an incandescent bulb for this reason. I have always mentioned this as an additional cost to your HVAC.

Over time, low voltage, incandescent will also discolor artwork, because of the heat. LED emits very little heat, and is thus the bulb of choice in most galleries.

So be careful of how you illuminate art and other objects.

Galley Green

We will be featuring respected local designers, builders and projects, which may help you in designing your own space....This is a good one.

If you had a galley kitchen 20 years ago, you were either forced to spend a ton of dough on a professional fridge or relegated to buy regular-depth non-matching products.

Most of us have standard refrigerators, but in a galley, this is an issue of space. You have to walk around the fridge to access the rest of your kitchen (if you have an old galley, your refrigerator is in the back right corner).

As Melissa Hammond of Hammond Design (plug intended and deserved) shows us:

• Refrigerator is shallow, so there is plenty of room

• Bosch matching suite...buying one brand homogenizes the handles, so all units look identical

But wait there is more on the lighting side

• The undercounter lights are LED, so they use about 5 watts each and have a 20 year life

• The overhead is color rendering CFLs, so the total kitchen has an equivalent of less than 30 total watts

• On the right a pass through was designed to allow natural lighting during the day and allow for easy serving to the eating area

• Cabinets are locally sourced....Thus finalizing a Green kitchen

Kitchen is affordable and state of the art efficient.

That's how its done.....nice work.