If you've been following along since the beginning you've seen the crazy transformation from dark to bright! One of the challenges that an A-frame house presents is where to put lighting. With the tall vaulted ceilings and exposed beams, there is no attic or rafters to run electrical. This creates opportunities to get creative! One of the biggest transformations has been the kitchen. In the old kitchen, the only light was the one above the sink which we felt wasn't enough. At first we wanted to keep the exposed beams. We considered running exposed conduit and track lights on the beams, but ended up not liking that look. Then we thought; should we drop the ceiling? We thought about it and flip flopped back and forth over and over because in most cases you're looking for ways to gain ceiling height. In our case, dropping the ceiling allowed us to install recessed lights, which made the space feel so much taller! Removing the giant black hood and cutting off the end of that beam helped to open the space up as well. The ceilings were 8'8" and we dropped them 8" to the bottom of the beam, which still left us with 8' tall ceilings. We also carried the dropped ceiling into the hallway because of how it connects with the kitchen. This allowed us to put more recessed lighting in the hallway, adding to the brightness downstairs. After the kitchen cabinets went in we stood back and compared the space to old photos from February and knew we had made the right choice!

Shop some of the products from our kitchen: Recessed lights// Black sink // Hex brass knobs from CB2 // Delta Kitchen Faucet with Touch2O Technology // Brass pulls from School House Electric //

PS. I also went through 3 sets of recessed lights. I couldn't figure out the right light color and finally decided that what I like is 3000k. We bought the Halo brand lights that I linked above and we love them!!

Our new kitchen! Not fully done, but almost there:

Before & during the process of the dropped ceiling:

Adam put up more wood for the recessed lights to attach to and for the drywall guys to attach the drywall to.