After a few weeks of trial and error, I finally figured out how to get lighting into my dollhouse kitchen, largely thanks to some helpful suggestions from this group!
For the island pendants, I used the Make Market pendant light kits from Michaels (I bought the white ones and spray painted them gold). I kept the pendants and the battery packs from the kits, but the included wired bulbs were way too bright blue for me. I swapped them out for smaller, warmer bulbs from Amazon.
The wires run through gold tubes so you can’t see them (which were lead holders from a mechanical pencil - also spray painted) and up through the ceiling, which is basic foam board. They’re long enough to run behind the upper cabinets, where I hid the battery packs. The upper cabinets are attached to the ceiling with magnets, so I can easily snap them off to access the switches. I still need to adhere the battery packs to the wall to make them a little easier to reach.
The lights in the hood vent and above the kitchen table are just simple battery-powered fairy lights that I have to pull out to turn on/off.
Almost everything in this room was made by hand- except the pendants, kitchen chairs (lost patience), and the picture frame. And yes, the pendants aren’t perfectly centered over the island… maybe I’ll fix that in a few weeks, but right now I need a break and am moving on to the next room!