Build.com sales seem real. We got 11 hunter fans for 70 each shipped. They had a 20% off sale then the builder used his contractor account to buy them. Saving another 100+ and the sales tax. Other than a few our other lights we are working with a lighting place since the prices on the ones we like are close enough to the prices am finding online. There were a few at wayfair that I fell in love with they don't carry.

We used build.com on our contractor's recommendation for the outside lanterns and entry & dining room chandeliers. I found my island lighting at a local place that had a great price on a Feiss fixture. Some we'll get at Menards or Lowes, not sure about fans yet. We still need to figure out vanities and some flush mounts for closets, etc.

I usually buy lighting fixtures for my clients at my favorite electrical supply house and bill them as a reimbursable expense. Good products, good prices and reliable professional advice. It's a bit more trouble for me but it avoids bad fixtures. Shopping at Home Depot and on the internet is like buying a pig in a poke. No one is going to tell you what not to buy.

Our small house doesn't have a lot of permanent lighting fixtures, as we like the look of floor and table lamps. I installed a number of ceiling cans in utility areas such as the bath, kitchen, closet, halls, and garage. They are dirt cheap, but I detailed them extensively to prevent energy loss into the attic. The only other fixtures are antique, found on ebay, rewired, and installed by me. The powder room has two old sconces, as does the master vanity. I found a hanging lamp, circa 1920's, that I rewired and hung in the foyer. We have 6 ceiling fans, most with lights. The one in the LR is antique, made in 1906. We have an art deco Hunter that we bought 25 years ago, and brought with us when we moved. The kitchen fan was rather spendy ($400), but goes well with our antique look and the tin ceiling. In the BR, we have a generic white fan from the big box store. I also splurged on two fans for the front porch, as the galvanized finish picks up the theme of our house and barn roofs.

I spent nearly $1000 on ceiling fans; the rest of our lighting was a few hundred dollars, plus sweat equity. Every bulb, inside and out is LED, and that adds up, although they've come down drastically.

I'm not sure what you're getting from fancy lighting fixtures, other than appearance. If they are hard wired, there are no moving parts. I've never had a fixture fall apart in use, and I've always used the cheap stuff. Obviously, appearance is important to most folks, and if you have the $$$, there's certainly some spectacular stuff out there. Some creativity can help. For example, I found reproduction porcelain Art Deco wall sconces for the bathroom, at $160 each. That's $320 for the pair. I bought similar, authentic, antique fixtures for $45 for the pair. Even if I had them professionally rewired, they would have been far cheaper than the repros.

Our local lighting/electrical store has a price match policy. With the contractor's discount it was cheaper than we could find online.

Poolroomcomesfirst:

I just searched for lighting last month and I had a lot of luck with lampsplus.com

I searched big box store, local stores, and I scoured the Internet. I ended up holding my breath and ordering almost everything from lampsplus. It was a great choice. The prices were reasonable, and the lighting is beautiful. Every sub who has come out has complemented the lighting choices!

Full disclosure: I bought closet, pantry, and a couple of ceiling fans from Lowes, but all of my accent lighting came from lampsplus, and I couldn't be more pleased!

Hope this helps!

Oh, and I looked extensively at build.com, but they did not have the vast selection of the style that I was looking for like lampsplus. That is why I ended up with them. I needed a really large foyer chandelier, and they did not have anything large enough in the style of my home.

We got a majority from the lighting store our builder has an account with so we were able to get contractor prices. That was cheaper than the same lights online. We did buy all the led kits for the can lights online as we found a really good deal on those. I ended up buying my dining room chandelier and bathroom sconces online because that was the only place I could find what I wanted.

I just bought lighting for two spec homes I'm building. I bought from three companies, West Elm, Shades of Light and My Lighting Source. My favorite was My Lighting Source. They were easy to deal with, fast shipping, and good prices, shipping is free and gave me a 20% discount.

I found no benefit going to a local specialty lighting store for our surface mount LEDs other than price - they did beat everyone else significantly. I went in with our plans and kitchen design and spent considerable time on multiple occasions working up the plan. "No one is going to tell you what not to buy." And neither did the 'professional' lighting designer with 20+ years of experience who WAY over spec'd the lighting we would need - we could land a 747 in our kitchen when the surface mounts are on. Thankfully we had the foresight to break it up into 2 switched areas (not as suggested) and have the other light sources separately switched as well.

My opinion, which is nothing but my personal opinion:

- Splurge on kitchen lights over your island /peninsula

- Splurge on the chandelier(s) over your table(s)

- Aside from the above, I really want one particular light set: I want wall-mounted lights beside my bed. Why? Because I don't want lamps sitting on my nightstands.

- Go moderate on everything else because they don't stand out all that much once you've installed your furnishings - I've lived with builder-basic light fixtures and ceiling fans ... and they've been fine. Exactly one light fixture (the plain florescent above my sink) has failed me ... I've opted to change one because of style ... I've replaced all bedroom fixtures with ceiling fans (I live in the South, and sleeping under a fan is a great luxury). Personally, I'm trying to beat the big-box store prices.

- If you're going to go trendy, this is a good place to do it. Light fixtures aren't hard to change out.

We got terrible service, and terrible pricing from the local box stores. (Same as for plumbing, and hardware). In the end, Build.com one! Currently platinum level, lol! We found their customer service to be great, and the selection great as well!

Hard to beat some of the shipping times too - our doorknobs were 8-10 weeks through our local place, and 3 days via build.com!

I'm like mushcreek a lot-we had to outfit the whole house with lights by the final inspections, and after researching the subject-I realized my only way to get stuff I like and not go broke is to buy vintage. So everything was bought on eBay, Etsy, Craigslist, except for can lights in utilitarian areas, under cabinet lighting(these were part of the builder's quote), dining room light, one of the vanity lights(had another plan but had to tweak the last moment), and some lanterns for the backyard. So..except for these new the rest are vintage-two chandeliers, 2 flash mounts, 3 pendants, two vanity lights, one wall chandelier(there is a thing like that apparently)), 3 sconces..we already had table lamps and couple floor ones. I have a big aversion to fans I must say, and also don't really need them in the very mild climate of coastal So Cal. We did have them in our previous home and I was always afraid to turn them on:) (kids did love them though). So no fans. The house is also on the cooler side I'd say. One story. In the previous home upper floor got hot in the summer..here, no such problem. Was able to talk my family out of using fans here.

It took a lot of time and energy to source the lights and some needed tweaking. It was not serious tweaking, no rewiring was involved (but for one light) but some parts were harder to get since they had to be European this and that. Eventually we were able to track these in local high end lighting stores, and on Amazon UK. My DH did all the tweaking. Frankly I d rather pay someone since he had enough of his plate, but he was very stubborn about it.

I mostly found buying from individual sellers a good experience. They were attentive, responsible, and usually pleasure to deal with. Of course had to pay shipping costs(unless it was a Craigslist find)-but even with this, much much cheaper than buying very ordinary but new lights.

Some fixtures were relatively expensive but it was balanced out by all that were dirt cheap.

What I'd do differently? Well as much as it was long and tiresome..Nothing probably. That was my way to get the lights that I like for the price that we could bear.

Also I know now much more about what questions to ask..what's the diameter of the canopy? does it have a crossbar attached? things like that. because I was asking about wattage and voltage and wiring, and had no idea there are small things that have to be there and due to the age and provenance of a light, they'd be different from standard here.

In a fantasy world I'd probably still use internet-and this wonderful high end store where the selection was impressive as were the owners and the sales people who knew what they were selling, and were very helpful, tiny stuff or not.