Living Lighting in the Beach

A few months ago we purchased two hanging lamps from Living Lighting in the Beach. Every day I’m filled with joy when I look up and see them. For just a few more dollars than an Ikea lamp would have cost (we purchase them during one of store’s sales), we got two exceptionally beautiful, top quality, high-​end lights that, as a further bonus, needed no assembly (yay!). The store was kind enough to deliver them for free (we are fairly close by so I don’t know if that is their standard policy) and though we had intended to purchase only one (we had taken both to do a comparison) we realized they were such a great deal that we just had to keep both. I will never go anywhere else for lighting.

The selection of shades and bulbs is impressive and the staff are very knowledgeable and friendly. We recently opened a restaurant in the area and were able to find all of our fixtures here. We also had to repair some ancient track lighting and they were able to locate replacement hardware in Vancouver and get it to us, all re-​wired and ready to go, in a matter of days. Highly recommend you pop in here and look first before going anywhere else.

My experience with this store has been very mixed. On the positive side, they have a great selection and a great location. They also successfully repaired a lamp for me.
The first negative incident occurred when I tried to special order a lamp. An employee kept me dangling for a couple of weeks, while he promised repeatedly to finalize the order and cost within a day. Eventually the manager stepped in, but I had ordered the lamp from another seller by then.
The second incident occurred with that lamp repair. First, the repair man installed a replacement cord that was thicker than the original cord, so drilling into the lamp was needed (surprisingly). Second, the store returned the lamp to me with the wrong bulb, so that there was no diffuser — the lamp head looked ugly. I had the correct bulb on hand, fortunately, so I was able to avoid a third visit to the store.
All in all, the store merchandise is probably fine, but my level of trust isn’t as high as it should be.

This place has a great selection. My husband and I had been searching for a light fixture for the dining room all over the city and finally found something we liked here.
This place loses stars because of a) pricing, and b) service.
The light fixture we found was «on sale» for $ 50. («On sale» is in brackets because we saw something very similar at Rona for the same price which was not on sale, however they did not have the brushed nickel finish we were seeking.) When we asked the salesperson if they had a new one in stock, she said that on that particular model, the floor model was all that was left. When we asked her and her manager if they could discount it at all since it had been sitting out (and there were other «sale» items which did come new), the woman in charge rudely said «No. It’s already on clearance. Clearance items can’t be discounted. It was originally eighty dollars so it’s already on sale.»
We were unsure, but very tired from an entire day of light-​hunting. We ended up buying it – but as it turns out, there was also no original box, warranty, or instructions with it. They literally pulled the fixture from the display wall, wrapped it in bubble wrap, stuck it in a random box and handed it to us.
Now this might be expected at a flea market or someplace a little shoddier, but definitely was not acceptable for a corner store in the Beaches which normally charges 2 – 3 times what big-​box hardware stores charge. Even big-​box hardware stores will give you all the contents of the original box AND a 5−10% discount if you buy their display models (at least in my experience in the past).
I guess the bit of consolation Living Lighting could offer us was that they said we had 10 days to return the fixture for a store credit. «Normally clearance items are final sale,» the salesperson said. «You can use that credit towards anything else we carry» (but the average wall mount light fixture there is a couple hundred dollars, which was not in our ideal budget range).
Overall, even though I’m glad we found what we were looking for, I would never ever shop here again unless it was as a last resort, and I was very desperate. Even then, I would probably go to a different location and spend the extra $$ there in hopes of getting better service.

We used to have a Living Lighting store where I grew up in the burbs. I remember as a child going in here a few times, and just being bored outta my mind. I used to think, geez a whole store devoted to lights, get me outta here!
Well now, 20 years later, I’ve grown up and I like to think, have a greater appreciation for the little things… Little things, such as light fixtures. Oh yeah! Living lighting has anything you could possibility think of when it comes to lighting. It not only has a wide array of lights, from night lights to beautiful decorative lamps, but it also has indoor/​outdoor fans (i didn’t know there was such thing as an outdoor fan) and house lights and even house numbers and signage.
They have some really neat looking lamps. Pricewise, expect to pay a little more than your average Ikea store, especially for the hanging lamps which I didn’t realize costs so much money.
Maybe I don’t have an appreciation so much for lighting, but just the shock that my cheapo parents ever stepped foot in this store.