Cahaya

This is Cahaya, a lamp store in Kemang, Jakarta. Kemang is the area where you find many order-made furniture shops and modern stylish furniture stores. You can buy lamp shades that are already made and sold at Cahaya or you also have an option to order and make your own. If you like designing your own furniture and lamps, Jakarta is a great place to be. It’s affordable to have order-made furniture here just by showing designs or photos of the furniture. I have not done it, so I am not so sure how much they cost, but I hear it’s cheaper than shopping at popular furniture stores in the U.S.

I took a few of our lamps to Cahaya to see if I could change the sockets of the lamp to the ones that fit the small light bulbs in Indonesia. The socket sizes of small light bulb (the socket part is skinnier) are slightly different, so I cannot use the Indonesian light bulbs for some of our American lamps. (The regular size light bulbs are the same.) You can use lamps in any country using plug converters, which are very inexpensive, so I brought all of our lamps. What you have to be careful with this is that you make sure you use light bulbs that are appropriate for the voltage. U.S. voltage is 110, but that in Indonesia is 220, so if you use American light bulb in lamps plugged in 220 V outlet, either the light bulb eventually explodes or catches a fire (I’m guessing). I actually tried the American light bulb in the lamp plugged in the 220 V outlet here and turned on the lamp. The light was very bright and a minute later, it started to smell like something was burnt a little. Needless to say it would not work and definitely not safe. Therefore, I hope the conversion of our lamp socket parts will be successful and hopefully it won’t cost more than buying new lamps!

I will let you know when the lamps are ready. Right now it’s a big holiday in Jakarta after Ramadan and many stores are closed. Some are closed until the end of this week. It will be a while till I can go pick up my lamps. Lamps make a big statement in a room, so rooms without lamps definitely make it feel like something is missing.

The store of Cahaya is on Kemang Timur road. If you come from north of the street, the store will be on your right. The big green sign is quite visible if you drive from the north, but I’m not so sure if that would be the case when driving from the south of Kemang Timur. Here’s the address.