lamps plus or lighting new York. Lighting NY had really good coupons. If you want a discount and it's not on sale, you can open the online chat and ask them about a coupon for what's in your cart. they'll email you in seconds and you get at least 20% off. I also really liked Shades of Light site. Bellacor is another good site.

Phew... I just finished buying lights and I used Lamps Plus, Lumens, Shades of Light, and Rejuvenation.

Here's my go-to place for lighting: https://www.lightingdirect.com/

They are part of the build.com family of home supply web sites. They carry a large selection or quailty fixtures. They have knowledgeable and friendly support staff, extensive info on the specs and helpful buyer reviews for most items, good prices, speedy shipping, and a generous return policy. I have used this site many times and have never been disappointed or had to worry about what I was getting.

I love Lumens and had great customer service from them on some complicated custom lighting. However, I was also able to purchase lighting and fans cheaper at a local mom and pop store—their prices came in significantly lower than sale items online.

I will second the recommendation for Lighting New York. We built last year and the majority of our lighting came from there. Great prices and great customer service. Also, check out their "open box" section. These fixtures are not returnable, but, if you know what you want, you can really save a lot of money on them.

Shop where you can get expert advice about appropriate fixture size, weight, light temperature and hanging lengths, where fixtures are delivered with items needed to hang.

https://lofingslighting.com/

"Houzz" and "Wayfair" both have a great number of choices but you may also like to view Shades of Light. The selection they offer has a great mix of styles, fair pricing, really great quality, and sound customer service.

I'll echo the shop local comment or at least give them a chance to get your business. Brick and mortar local stores will negotiate, but you need to do that in person. I am willing to pay just a bit more to buy fixtures locally.

Wherever you buy LEDs make sure you understand what you are buying because LED lighting has been changing rapidly and has become complex and esoteric therefore buying for appearance and price can be risky. And the manufacturers no longer provide free catalogs so its necessary to search the internet and you can never find everything you need.

An electrician just proposed recessed LED fixtures for one of my projects with a Color Rendering Index (CRI) of 80. I had to call the manufacturer to get the "R9" value which was 3.36. These fixtures would have produced lifeless skin tones. This was never a problem with halogen lighting.

If you're not familiar with R9, there are 8 standard pastel colors used to determine a CRI rating. The 9th color (R9) is a strong red and not always listed by manufacturers. An appropriate R9 value for good skin tones is 50 or more. Since that's the requirement for housing in California, look for LEDs that are "California Title 24 Compliant".

Thats just one pitfall of online buying. To be really safe use a lighting designer, a lighting store or an electrical supply house. These stores allow you to see the fixtures installed and switch back and forth between them and they can explain the more esoteric issues.

Schoolhouse has some really good options, and I’ve been really happy with lights purchased from West Elm and CB2, specifically for smaller tucked away spots like laundry room and hallways, modern but not screaming look at me modern.

We just found out the place we were going to go for lighting was bought by an electrical supply company and they closed all the stores and tell people to shop online now. We were looking forward to having the help of the educated sales staff to help make some lighting decisions. Now we have no place to go.. We were already going to be driving close to 2 hours to get to this place. Closest place now would be to drive to Philly or NYC 3.5 hours. Ugh....

I guess we will have to look online now. DOH!!!

We are so bummed.

doc5md-

You might be able to get help online with some of the vendors. At least that was my experience when I talked with Customer Service at lighting direct.com. The most recent purchase I made from them was bathroom sconces and I got helpful answers over the phone when trying to decide between several bulb options.

@kudzu9- Thanks for the tip! I'll keep that in mind for sure!

That's terrible. Well, I worked/managed a showroom for 12 years, so I can maybe help, also have friends who still own a lighting store so I could run other questions by them. I hate that mom and pop stores are fading away...........

RL Relocation I agree. Unfortunately in two mid-sized cities where I’ve lived in the past few years, my ability to buy from mom and pop was stopped short by their huge selection - all of which looked straight out of the 90s. So disappointing.