Thursday, December 13, 2007

I asked Julius, the designer who designs a lot of the pages on this website, to name his favorite Schonbek crystal chandelier. He picked Hamilton with rock crystal and clear crystal.

Julius is a big guy who works out at the gym every day. Family man. Casual dresser. Computer wiz. Superficially you might not expect him to pick such a magnificent chandelier. But he’s a designer who appreciates beauty for its own sake. This chandelier might not go with the décor in his condo, but he admires it in the abstract as a design.

He says he likes the idea of an all crystal chandelier, every part even the arms being crystal. It does make for a kind of icy grandeur. And when the chandelier is large, displaying lots of crystal on crystal arms, it’s an engineering feat as well. Schonbek is good at supporting beauty with technical ingenuity, and recently the custom department created the largest all-crystal chandelier in the world.

Hamilton comes with a variety of crystal options, but Julius picked the chandelier with rock crystal and clear crystal because he likes the subtlety of it, the muted quality of the rock crystal drops in combination with the brilliance of the faceted clear crystal pendants.

What interests me, too, is that Julius showed no hesitation in choosing his favorite crystal chandelier. He has silhouetted and color-corrected hundreds of chandelier images, for catalogs and for games on the website. Despite having all these images in his mind, he was able to select one.

 Some people know what they like instantly. It’s like love at first sight. They feel an immediate attraction, and that’s it. Others need to go through a process of looking around and mulling it over. Either way, a visit to a large lighting showroom full of Schonbek crystal chandelier is the best possible way to make a choice, or initiate the process of choosing. Call 800-836-1892, and you’ll be connected to a very friendly customer service rep who can direct you to the showroom nearest you.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

You don’t have to be rich to own a Schonbek crystal chandelier, but there are some Schonbek designs that are not for every income bracket. I’m thinking of Da Vinci™ LED, which is an all-out extravagance.

After all, it’s a massive, fiery ball of high-end crystal. It measures three or five feet in diameter (your choice of enormous, or more enormous).

And it puts on a light show.

If I owned a Da Vinci™ LED chandelier, I’d keep it in halogen mode most of the time. That is, the crystal would be clear, forming a celestial sphere that feels like having your own private moon inside your home.

Then for company dinners, for parties and around the holidays I’d switch to LED mode and unleash all the colors.

Da Vinci™ LED is not a subtle light source. It requires bold architecture and a daring sense of interior design. But if you’re a film star, a tycoon or high-flyer of any sort, and your lifestyle can support it, go for it.

Not every lighting showroom carries this monumental crystal chandelier, so you might like to check the dealer listing on this website before setting forth to shop for it.

I saw Da Vinci™ LED at the Chandelirious exhibit in the Shelburne Museum, and I can assure you it’s like nothing else in the universe of lighting.

Monday, December 10, 2007

I just saw a press clipping in which the journalist called the dining room the least used space in the home. People go to immense trouble to design it, then only use it for holidays and company dinners.

What to do about this? Two things come to mind.

First of all, since the kitchen is where everyone really wants to eat, might as well go all out on its design. Hang a crystal chandelier over the kitchen table. Schonbek offers lots of mini crystal chandeliers for smaller spaces. Or you can be a bit outrageous and put a large crystal chandelier in your kitchen. We have examples on this website, both eclectic and contemporary.

You’ll still want a crystal chandelier in the dining room. This is your chance to go fancy and formal.

Of course you’ll install your crystal chandeliers with a dimmer. It would be foolish not to. Part of the fun is carefully controlling the brilliance of your chandelier appropriate to the occasion. For example, you might like it dazzling for dinner, but dimmed way down for the party that follows. A low level of electricity amidst highly prismatic crystal jewels makes for a wonderfully romantic quality of light.

So you have this large dining table with an easily controlled source of light. Why not use it for projects, like putting photos into albums, assembling scrap books, wrapping presents and so forth? You can go bright with the wattage to see what you’re doing, then back to subtle lighting when you’re finished.

If your dining room flows into your living room, the dining table can even more naturally become part of your daily life. My husband, a great reader of obscure works of philosophy, uses the dining table as a place to look up words. He keeps oversized dictionaries in a scholarly-looking dictionary stand nearby and cranks up the chandelier to read definitions. A crystal chandelier doesn’t make the best reading light, but for occasionally leafing through reference books, it’s just fine. More than fine.

Not everyone will want to use the dining table for research purposes, but the point is, a crystal chandelier on a dimmer is more versatile than you might think.