Let there be nice light....finally

When we were renovating this house about 20 years ago, we didn't find a nice light unit immediately which we liked. We wanted a nice eye-catcher in the vide and something quite stylish, minimalistic elsewhere.   Lights are very expensive so if you are in doubt, you don't make a purchasing decision quickly.

And so we joked that light bulbs were really hip (actually they were...those huge ones) , we saved money after all those renovations and we got accustomed to the light bulbs at several points in our living room up to the point we were totally oblivious to them. 

some light bulbs got hidden by a cheap paper Ikea frame

It's not like we've never looked for light in the last 20 years, on the contrary.   In 2007, we saw a very stylish lamp for the dinner table in a store in Portland, Maine but that couldn't be shipped so easily and after that for years we didn't see one that we liked as much. 

Our trip to the Ruhr and a visit to the Red Dot design museum gave me plenty of inspiration and triggered me to open up Pinterest and make a mood board. The Copernic light, I've still looked for until the end of 2023.  Then I saw those hanging at a location in Leuven and decided that they weren't as cool anymore as I had dreamed of them for 11 years. 

We've been really measuring and been at the point of buying the petite friture pendants...and all of a sudden they were in every office and coffee shop and I also lost interest a bit. 

Anyway, in the fall of 2023 we took the decision that we'd end our undecisiveness and we'd hunt for some lamps with success. We went to a specialised store in Leuven, had several consulting sessions, toured with the children, got offers, rediscussed and pursued until we had a decision.  We had chosen the pendants that our children had baptised a "wonderlamp" . So exciting, by early 2024 we'd say goodbye to our light bulbs 


And it was 2024 and we waited.
We waited a bit more.
We phoned for more info.  
We waited
We researched the financial situation of the light store. 

After 10 months we got the clear answer that an error had happened with our order.  It was a bespoke order where the factory had to make our pendants to our measurements and that had not gone through. WTF?  Ok, the responsible people were no longer in the store...Fine, the order had after 10 months been re-issued, the timer got reset and we waited.

From now on I phoned regularly.  Al wass fine. Yes they could see our order in the system. 

2024 approached its end and it was very exciting to think whether our order would arrive just before or just after New Year.  

But we started 2025 with silence.   And unanswered mails. And a phone that wasn't picked up. 
I researched their financials and public structure more. 

Seriously, we got lame answers of a whole personnel turn-over, a struggle with a backlog, promises to get updates the week ever and none of them were ever met. The store opening hours got reduced, the phone not picked up again so I want to camp at their desk at opening hours to look the owner in the eyes. I got so much apologies, so much stories of an operational struggle to stay open without personnel, an attempt to turn)over etc.   
Fine...but where are our lamps? I'd get an update within 2 weeks as her new hire was a pittbull who would get to the bottom of  the backlog and contact with the factories etc....There was silence.

So I researched what to do juridically. I was pretty certain we could get our advanced money back but the thing was...we wanted to change our light bulbs to our wonderlamps rather than having a law fight. 

And then by the end of April, someone picked up the phone. Somebody who did not recognize my name yet (as I had taken the habit of just saying my name on the phone and waith for the excuse).  A newly hired accountant who listened, who promised and who ... even though not operationally responsible... promised ownership. And guess what, she phoned back within an hour.   She sent an e-mail the next day.  
And another update 2 weeks laters: our lamps had arrived !! Could we get them installed the week after? 

All of a sudden we had to rush to get the parking permit arranged for the installers etc but hell I wasn't going to postpone now.  We'd make it happened on the first day possible and so we did.  I was a little nervous to see if truly nothing had gone wrong with our order, but 2 nice installers came and worked and laughed about Rodin who gooffed with their laser light and a few hours later, we had our lamps. 

No more lightbulbs but Occhio pendants.   Our wonderlamps feel truly like a little wonder after all our patience .