When to Use Pendant Lights

1. When to Use Pendant Lights Pendant lights are a hot light fixture these days. It seems like everywhere you look in magazines or on home improvement shows, they are using pendant lights. It is no wonder, really. These are terrific light fixtures. The variety of shapes, styles and prices will suit just about everyone looking for lighting replacements. As with anything that is currently popular, it is easy to overdo -- think of the design excesses of the 1970s as an example. With a few simple principles under your belt, you will be able to add pendant lighting to your home like a pro! Pendant lights are simply a fancy way of saying "hanging lights." But they do differ from swags or chandeliers significantly. A pendant is going to hang down at least two feet from the ceiling. It will be singular -- meaning, one strand, one shade, one bulb. When should you use this style of light fixture? First, my favorite place to install pendant lighting is the kitchen. There they are useful as well as beautiful. What you get with pendant is focused lighting. That is perfect for kitchen work, where you are preparing food and reading recipes. Depending on the size of the kitchen, a row of two or three pendant lights will look perfect. With the wonderful variety of colors, shapes and lamp shades to choose from, you can find a set of pendants that will compliment your kitchen decor. They are particularly apt in kitchens with an island work space. The pendants drop over the island and it just pulls the room together. If you have a high ceiling, pendants can be a welcome design element in the dining room. I recently saw the coolest light fixture -- it was a row of three colored bottles. They looked like beautiful wine bottles

2. and it made the dining room a fun and funky place to be. The ceiling in that house was tall enough to accommodate the long strand combined with the long "shades" of the wine bottle design. Not every house can handle that sort of fixture, so you have to balance your personal delight at a design with the practicality of how it will look when it is installed. The same premise goes for using pendant lights in the bathroom. A way to get around the high ceiling issue is to hang the lights in a place where no one's head will be. It is a danger with any hanging light -- having a human head hit the light. Don't be afraid to get a little risky with your light fixtures. Now that you know a few simple rules, you can consider installing pendant lights without worrying about making a costly mistake.