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Pendant lighting placement over kitchen island

15 years ago

Hi everyone,

I've been a long time lurker and occasional poster on this site and always find excellent suggestions here. I was wondering if I could have some advice on where to place pendant lighting over our kitchen island (with raised breakfast bar area). We ordered 3 pendant lights but am not sure where we should hang them. I'm attaching a link to the floor plan of my kitchen for reference. The island is sort of a stretched L-shape, so the placement is causing us some confusion.

Specific questions I have are:

1) Do you center the lights over the work/prep area or over the raised bar area?

2) How high to do you hang the lights (how much space between counter/bar and bottom of light?)

3) Do we spread the lights out or have a closer grouping of 3 lights on one side of the l-shape? If the shorter grouping, which side - sink side or the other side?

4)How far apart do you place the pendants?

Thanks so much in advance!

DB

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Floor Plan

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I don't have pendents or recessed lighting - so no help there, but if you don't have under cabinet lighting, add that to your list. My under cabinet lighting is the most helpful lighting I have. At a guess, I would say 2 pendants over the island, but your lighting store should also be able to help you. It depends on what you use and if your recessed lights light up the island - then pendants aren't necessary. Change out the track light over the sink for sure.
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I assume you've tried frosted bulbs already, right? Pendants for task lighting are always tricky. Your lights look really good in there when they are off but I think you need to replace them with something more like what Nancy used. An opaque shade--even thick frosted glass--is what you need. If you feel crafty, try putting frosted window film over the sides of the shades. Swap to LED lights in case it doesn't respond well to heat. Once you can't see through the shades, these disguised or new ones, you can use any ugly-but-practical bulb you like, like spotlight style bulbs. Once I swagged an old Tiffany-style stained glass shade over a cooktop. I bet that's not the look you want. But I needed light. :)
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