The lighting is so important in a dining area, you need it bright enough to be able to see your food but dim enough to allow you to relax, particularly if it is a winter’s evening. The right ambience can be created easily by paying special attention to your dining room lighting.

Dining Room

Image: House to Home

A light fitting over the table that works on a dimmer switch is perfect for moderating the strength of the light but for a romantic meal, candles on the table with table lamps on the sideboard are perfect.

Omad Table Lamps

The Omad lamps by Klickity are eco-friendly lamps that are perfect for providing light at the sideboard. The lamps will also wash the walls and room with pools of light and shadow.

Aoki Interiors Light

Aoki Interiors have a striking Parecchi wall light created from five vibrant and contrasting lampshades – perfect if you would like to create a feature wall with something quite different.

Hurricane Lamp

And if you would like to create something calmer and prettier, how about simple candlesticks or little hurricane lamps on the table with some simple flowers from a cottage garden.

We’re delighted to say that we are now stocking Klickity Lighting at Garrendenny Lane. Irish designed and created ceiling lights and tabletop lamps that are very eco-friendly, stylish and vivid. We first saw Klickity at Showcase 2011 where their Palm ceiling lampshade won the New Product award in Tabletop and Interiors.  In order to introduce Klickity to you properly, I decided to ‘interview’ the 2 ladies behind the business – Kate Cronin and Elizabeth Fingleton.

When was Klickity formed?

Klickity was founded by Kate Cronin in March 2010. 

 

 

 

 

What are your backgrounds?

Kate says “In 2006 I graduated from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin with a BDes Honours in Industrial Design. I then moved to London to work as a packaging designer. Over the two years working with the company I learnt about production methods, manufacturing considerations and got to observe a small business grow and develop. This gave me the confidence to move back to Ireland and start my own business. I’m currently working on an MA in Design Sustainability at NCAD so as you can imagine I’m kept busy!“ 

Liz says “I graduated from Dublin City University in 2006 with a BA in Business Studies and then, like a lot of business students, I joined a Big 4 accountancy firm to complete my chartered accountancy training. Having worked in financial services for almost 4 years I realised I wanted to use my business skills in a creative industry. Luckily a chance encounter with Kate led me to take on the role of business development partner in Klickity in August 2010. I have creative input and also have the satisfaction of developing a business from the very early stages, it’s just what I was looking for.”

 

Light Tin is a fabulous Light, Do tell us about the process by which it is made?   What kind of tins is it made from?

 

Light Tin is a lampshade made from redesigned post industrial food tins. We love the shape and size of the tins so we have to keep our source a secret! But I can tell that we rescued the tins from being thrown in the recycling bins of a local restaurant. We insert a metal attachment to the inside of the tin which affixes to any hanging ceiling light fixture to make an intriguing yet practical lampshade. The outside of the tins are powder coated in various colours to give a high quality finish, while the inside of the tins are left in their natural gold coloured metal state which reflects light from the bulb. The Light Tin is available in two bold colours at the moment, red and blue. Klickity are re-using a product that would otherwise get recycled thereby saving energy and essentially up-cycling waste into a value added item. As the old adage goes ‘One man’s waste is another man’s treasure’. 

 

 

 

What awards/prizes have you won so far?

We were delighted to be awarded the Best New Product Award in the Tabletop and Interiors category for our Palm lampshade at Showcase Ireland 2011. It was great experience for us and a real confidence boost to start the new year!

 

 

What about Palm – tell us about the design process for it.

Kate says “When I was working in London I used to set myself design challenges just to keep my product design brain active. So I’d stay back after work and come up with ideas. I wanted to design something as simply as possible out of one sheet of material to keep production efficient and have as little waste as possible. This led me to the shape of the leaves for Palm and after months of tweaking I finally came up with a working prototype I was happy with. I love that it is so versatile. We can keep adding new colours to keep it fresh and I already have thought of 3 other products that we can develop using the same concept, so it’s very exciting.”

 

Omad is really different, really shapely and elegant and very different.  You say it is environmentally friendly, how important is this to you?  The card is recyclable – how long then do you expect the lamp to last? (i.e. does it have a short life span being made of card?)

“Omad was inspired by my belief that card is a beautiful material for lighting as it’s strong, flexible and translucent and most importantly widely recycled. I want people to use it for as long as they want to. But the beauty of it is that when the time comes you can disassemble it, recycle the card and post the electrics back to us so our lamp won’t be clogging up landfills for generations to come. I made my first Omad 2 years ago and it’s still going strong. Perhaps being made of card it needs some TLC but you’d be surprised how long it can last,” says Kate.

 

 

Do you have any other designs in mind/ what are your plans for the future?

“Kate’s sketch book is full of ideas waiting to be put into production but we need to pace ourselves and gradually bring new products to market. As the business is self financed I’m a big proponent of organic growth!”, says Liz. “Growth wise, we want to increase our customer base in Ireland before looking towards an export market. As new products are added to the range we plan to remain focused on our core principles of sustainability, quality and affordability. I can tell you our next product is going to be a really funky colourful wall clock, so watch this space.“

 

Our mission statement is to ‘consider the environment’, this occurs during the conceptual stage of product development, i.e. if we think something is going to be very wasteful on resources we redesign it. I believe smart material use and manufacture are imperative to a more sustainably designed future. We are not claiming to be perfect though, every company can continually improve their systems from procurement to packaging and waste disposal. We haven’t reached a level yet where we can sit back and say ‘oh we’re carbon neutral’! But being environmentally friendly is something we continually consider and strive towards.

 I luurve Light Tin and am seriously considering them for my kitchen or utility.  Have you got a favourite and what do you think of what these Irish designers have created?

I mentioned some time ago that I am trying to get into the habit of taking photos of clients’ finished rooms if they don’t mind. I really admire the way Yukari is so organised  and showcases her fabulous lampshades and fabrics in her clients’ houses.  You can see some photos on her blog but here’s a couple I really fell in love with.

The colour for this Tulip Tulip fabric is bespoke – isn’t it gorgeous?  My bedroom at the moment is green as are a couple of other rooms (well, green tones) and I’m adamant to change the colour scheme soon  but I do yearn after these.

Tulip Tulip on mustard silk.

And this lampshade has red silk on the outside with Manor House damask print on the inside.

Yukari Sweeney Wallpaper and Lampshades can be purchased here.  Other designs as well as fabrics can be ordered from Garrendenny Lane.

Here’s an article I wrote on Lighting for a local magazine:

Just click on the PDF for it to enlarge. I’ll be doing the Friday Fix-it Post later on this evening

Update: I mentioned this on Facebook but forgot to mention it here – I’m really chuffed to be nominated for the ‘Best Business Blogger’ at the IIA NetVisionary award. Made my day

I admired this light fitting when I saw it on Ally’s From the Right Bank blog a few weeks ago.

There’s something particularly striking, yet graceful about it.  A single light bulb can be stark and while in one way, the starkness could be emphasised by a cluster of single light bulbs, it really is fetching.  It also has a touch of ‘what you see is what you get’, about it and being my motto in a way, meant that I immediately bonded with it!!  So when I saw this pic on the Homes and Gardens website, I couldn’t resist sharing it with you – fab to see the pendant in a full setting – very contemporary.

So what do you think? Love it or hate it?