While our small family lived just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin county, I owned an electrical contracting business specializing in lighting design and light fixture creation, my wife was a glass artist, specializing in kiln formed and stained glass.
One project we collaborated on was designing and manufacturing 14 custom lighting fixtures, where art glass was draped over a custom mold, creating beautiful glass landscape light fixtures, that stood on a copper stem lining both sides of our clients long curving driveway up Mt Tamalpias.
Along with the final fixtures created, their were some rejects, and with one of those rejects we created an outdoor fixture for my mother, which we mounted in a large flower pot, with plants growing beneath it and a pull chain switch to operate it.
That reject put out such a soft tranquil light, perfect for long lazy evenings on one's patio. Upon gazing at it one evening we thought how great it would be if it was a fountain, with soft drops of water raining down the sides of the glass, and landing in a pool full of aquatic plant life. Thus the idea of LiteRain was born.
In 2002 we moved from the traffic and sunny days to the Pacific Northwest, in the search for a simpler life to raise our then 6 year old daughter. Being self employed for many years we were in a unique position to recreate our business ventures, collaborating together with my wife’s artistic abilities and my technical lighting expertise.
The first product of LiteRain is a beautiful hand painted glass shade on a copper stem. The painting is reminiscent of gazing through the branches of a fir tree, with the blue sky showing through. Water runs down the glass dropping softly from all around the shade, creating a raining effect. Both the shade and rain are lit with a series of LED lights, the shade being lit with warm white light, and the rain with cool white light, creating the look of falling diamonds in the evening light. The unit is self contained and includes the water reservoir, low voltage pumping system, low voltage lights, and a way to connect to it to a water source, using a float valve, eliminating the need to ever fill the basin.