Lottie's Interiors: Show me the light!

I like to think that my overall vision for the new pad is fairly clear in my mind. Nothing fussy. Clean lines. Modern but not too 'out there'....we have young children....'out there' just won't work. Needs to be kept too spotlessly clean!

One of the problems with this project is that the final decision making bits are coming all too thick and fast now. My fault. In my eagerness to get cracking I probably haven't left time to actually sit and plan. That's not my style though. I'm sure some trendy out there would describe my approach as 'organic'. Certainly, I prefer to make decisions about detail as I go along rather than having a plan set in concrete from day 1. My brain doesn't function that way....probably much to the irritation of our fab project manager, Phil!

Take lighting, for example. With my general excitement about the whole task, I have to say that deciding on the lighting has given me the odd sleepless night.

At the moment we are concentrating on the kitchen dining area. It's a whole chicken and egg situation. As the ceilings are being boarded imminently, we have to decide on where we want ceiling lights. Our current dining table came with us from the cottage and in the new kitchen looks like a side table! We've had to measure out what size table we might want to fit the new space and then plan lighting above accordingly! It looked a bit like a crime scene last night, with a black marker pen outline of the table we have yet to get drawn on to the floor! I'd already decided that I was going to have pendants above the dining table hence we needed to know where the table would be....even thought we haven't got the table yet...
Then....were we having a single pendant, or two...or three...You get the picture.
Had I found the light of my dreams, these decisions may have been easier. I haven't yet found the light I want.
My poor husband. We now have lights on order left, right and centre in a bid to make a decision. For a wide selection of lighting, I have found that Habitat and an online retailer, Sparksdirect, both offer a really good selection of styles to satisfy all budgets.
Here are a selection of my favourites, from the budget-busting classic, Laviani's Kartell Fly below, availabe in 11 shades, to the Saffron paper light at £12. I've got a thing about this saffron shade at the moment, so this paper pendant may have to feature somewhere in this house!
Budget, and the fact that most of the room will be white, will probably steer me more toward the grey or black drum shades to give a little contrast...but we will see! I've ordered a selection to help. The Kartell is on the living room floor at the moment and although it is nice, it's not right...and for £159 (times 2) it would need to be!
I'll probably make the decision 5 minutes before we sit down for Christmas dinner!