The Best Lighting Fixtures To Buy When Your Budget Is Tight

I’m a fan of good, quality lighting fixtures. And you probably are, too. After all... Who isn't?

It really makes an artistic statement in a space, goes a long way to telegraph its style, and can push an interior up a notch in quality and design bravado.

Many times I begin the design process thinking about the decorative lighting in a room. It’s important to consider the light fixtures at the get-go of a room’s design plan.

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sometimes people forget to budget much for lighting. 

Sometimes it is easy to spend all your money on the bigger ticket items in a remodel and leave only a small budget left for lighting.

Often people don’t anticipate the expense, spend the money elsewhere, or just don’t value it as much as, perhaps, a designer would.

Of course, there are some good inexpensive lighting options available out there. There are fixtures that are well-designed, look stylish and go easy on your budget.

Here are some examples:

I’ve used this light fixture (3 of them) in a nail salon before. Back then it was $50 from IKEA.  (Yes, it took the owner hours to put these together. You pay one way or another, in time or money. :-)

Simple industrial type fixtures can be fun and inexpensive. I think this barn light fixture is classic, timeless, and I could see it working well in many types of spaces that want a more simple, rustic look. I used something similar to it in my Honey Bee Ham Deli project. There are lots of versions of this fixture, this one was from Quorum Lighting for under $50.

This generic look, 5-light chandelier from Progress Lighting is a well-priced pick in a popular black finish. Progress Lighting, Capital Lighting, and Mitzi Lighting are three of my go-to sources for lower budget situations.

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One direction to take if you have no money left for lighting is... 

Go generic.

That’s right—  generic, plain, and simple is better than trying for something really stylish in a cheap manner. 

That's why a fixture with a simple drum shade, a glass globe pendant, a basic lantern, etc. would be good choices. While they my not really knock your style out of the park, they don’t really bring it down either.

They could also serve as decent placeholders until you have the budget to go all out. It’s kind of like a simple, basic, black dress: You can get by with a less expensive dress if it is understated and subtle. However, if you wore a more outrageous style and color (something that would call attention to itself), it would be best for it to be made of higher quality materials.

Another way to save on lighting is….

….put the money into the most exposed fixtures in the house, where it will be noticed and appreciated the most. Use more budget friendly options in places where they won’t be seen as much, like upstairs bathrooms, laundry rooms, media rooms, game rooms, etc.

Oh gosh, that was hard to type for me! I want beautiful, statement lighting everywhere!

In a recent remodel, I had to pick and choose where to splurge on the lighting. I chose the kitchen pendants and the dining room chandelier as the most important fixtures and cut back in other areas to some options like the ones below. Those two spaces are open and in the middle of the home, visible as you walk in and from the stairs above. I wanted those to be special and relate to each other design-wise.

For the small foyer that was really just part of a long hallway, I chose a more budget minded fixture, because a nice looking lantern type fixture that was more generic would be fine there.

Budget Friendly Lighting

Here are some great links, below, to budget friendly lighting!

I have used some of these in projects myself, like this one where I was hired to help get this property sold. 

I have to warn you, the pricing on lighting these days has gone up a lot because of the shortages in our supply chain and shipping costs getting products from Asia. You have to realize, this is still budget minded, by comparison to everything out there now, in 2022 and beyond.

I checked some of the pricing that was going on when I specified some of these fixtures a few years ago, the prices have almost doubled since then! Yikes!

So, you have to understand, things just cost more now overall and will continue to, until demand subsides and product becomes prolific again. And who knows when that will be?

These are still great buys for today’s market, so check out some of my faves, below.

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Budget friendly lighting that looks great! carlaaston.com

Want to see some of the great new lighting products and trends that were introduced at the Lightovation show in Dallas in 2020 and 2021? Here are my recaps.