This is a fun thread! I wonder how many of us garden. I'm a bit fanatical. I've never really had an eat-in kitchen, just our soon-to-be-ex-kitchen's peninsula seating. Since the peninsula was our main prep area and since sitting there afforded us excellent views of all the dishes, knives, cutting boards, etc. used in prep, it was not very relaxing to sit at! And now that I think of it, I don't have a lot of seating in the garden(s) either. One 25'x75' plot at our local "community gardens" (I have to drive there) consists of 27 raised beds with paths between them. I do sit on the edges of the raised beds, but more often at one end underneath a tree, since I like to look at the whole plot and the bees, dragonflies, butterflies, flowers, veggies, etc. from that end. At home, the veggie garden is in a fenced-off area to prevent critters from getting in, though there are roses and clemati growing on the pergola gateway to it. So I guess my favorite thing is to sit on the patio and be surrounded by the beds of flowers, herbs, shrubs, and trees when at home. I do like to sit looking at the crammed-full "kitchen garden" though. I can hardly wait until we get to eat out there every night again. Neither of those really counts as "in the garden," but they're more in the garden than overlooking the garden from, say, a deck raised above them or something. The main exception is at home when the mosquitos start coming out. We're looking forward to our new sunroom where we can look out at the gardens without (my husband) being eaten alive! bean

I chose the pendant color after the cabs, counters and sink were in. I bought pendants in a couple of different finishes at the local big box, and carefully held them up to see which I liked. Then I carefully repacked and returned them. It was a lot easier to choose the color when I could see it in the space. I did this with the hardware, too, and I was surprised that the finish I expected to use didn't work. So keep an open mind - there might even be other options in the "gray or black metal" family that could be perfect.

I would start with a general idea of what you want (and where) in terms of recessed versus non-recessed (and all the more "fun" stuff) and then go through your house with an electrician. For example, my husband I plotted out where we wanted to use recessed LEDs versus fixtures on the plans (as well as electrical outlets, switch plates (and motion sensors versus dimmers versus regular), timers, considered where we would want to have lighting over art, etc. We already knew we wanted a certain chandelier, and recessed in certain places. Other fixtures though were still more up in the air. Then we met with the electrician at the house and walked through with our plans and also listened to his recommendations and made some changes. He was fantastic. He had lots of feedback, positive and not so much negative as much as "steer in another direction", and if we were like "what would you recommend for this room" he would ask questions about what the room would be used for, etc, and make recommendations on that. Once we were done that we knew exactly where we would be putting fixtures, and then I just went shopping myself at a design/lighting store, and looked at their inventory and catalogues. The ones offered by my builder were not great, and while they could source others they had to mark them up and so it made better financial sense to go on my own. The design/lighting store actually was very competitive price wise as they offered me a "house discount" and price matching. I purchased all my fun fixtures through them, but the recessed LEDs from my builder/electrician. The store labelled all the fixtures for the rooms, and did provide some advice and direction in a couple areas where I was a bit more torn. I generally hate shopping and "choosing" but that was actually one of the fun parts of it all for me and I discovered a real love for lighting stores, ha. I am very happy with how it all turned out. However, as Virgil noted, my builder could not install them before me before close due to warranty issues. I had the electrician come back the day after we closed to install all but the chandelier - we are waiting to put that up until they complete a punch list in the room it will be in to avoid the dust and debris getting onto the crystals. I can't wait to see it go up!

Definitely a similar finish on all. I wouldn't do any more caged fixtures, however. You could do a candelabra style in your dining room, as it will be the most noticed because of the hanging height, and then something in the entry to complement the rest. Do you even need a fixture in the kitchen eating space? Looks like there are can lights in the ceiling that would be sufficient and then nothing would block the view through the windows. Could you use the fixture from there in the entry? Then a candelabra style in the dining room? If you do need one in the kitchen eating space, I might get a small candelabra for that space and use the caged one in the entry, then a larger candelabra for the dining room. Maybe something like these? Not sure what other styles you favor or the sizes you need. First two suggested for dining room, smaller last two for kitchen eating space, if you decide to switch out the caged one: