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Home Decorating

Monorail lighting -- what's wrong with it?

11 years ago

I rarely see anybody using it, and it always looks so appealing in the lighting store.

The tiny fixtures look nice to me, like little jewels, and the flexibility seems like it could solve problems in hallways with only a single ceiling hole, or rooms with low ceilings, or just because you don't want a single heavy light source in the middle of your room's ceiling.

I usually develop my "eye" slowly, over many experiences, and I might eventually figure this out after many viewings, but I'm trying to short circuit that long process.

Thanks!

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Comments (3)

Fun2BHere
11 years ago
There's nothing wrong with it. I think it can be used quite effectively in modernist interiors and loft spaces. I prefer the ones with small halogen heads set in a straight line about 12" out from the wall and used to wash the wall with light or to highlight art. I don't particularly like the looks of the curvy one stuck in the middle of a room's ceiling as I think it looks of an era.
pricklypearcactus
11 years ago
I absolutely agree with Fun2BHere.
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User
11 years ago
There's nothing wrong with it if it suits the style of the home it's in.

It IS quite jarring to have it in a more traditional home though. It's like someone putting in high gloss enamel slab cabinet doors in the kitchen of a center hall colonial. You are not juxtaposing a bit of modern to accent the traditional there, you are screwing up the home's aesthetic. That's part of the negative reaction to it.

The other part of the negative reaction is that it speaks to attempting to shortcut and economize on the proper method for adding needed lighting in a room. In your example of a dark hallway needs additional lighting, the proper way to do that is to install more electrical boxes in the ceiling so that more lights can be added. Glomming on octopus tentacles and string with even tiny little bulbous heads to a single electrical box is not the proper way to add additional lighting unless you live in a concrete loft. Even then, exposed conduit for that second or third light is a design feature, not a drawback.

The third objection to track lighting is that much of it is downright ugly. There is no getting around that. Slapping some ORB or an art glass shade on an ugly fixture doesn't make it a pretty one. Yes, objects can be utilitarian and attractive, but again, the home has to be the right style where you're walking the line between where the undecorated or adorned utilitarian object IS art to the Kohler ad where the toilet is in the corner of the living room in the middle of two glass walls.

It just needs a spotlight from a monorail track light, don't you think?

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