Here's what I came up with: Current house has island light at 5'9", out of most peoples eye-line. Pendants for new house would come down to about 5 feet if I used the provided hardware. Would block the veiw of the range and be very in your face. The top and bottom fittings screw off, the threaded bits stay in the rod. But I'm going to take a fitting to the electric supply store, buy some correct sized hollow threaded connectors [the wire feeds through the center], and solder or glue the connectors into copper or steel pipes of whatever length I like. I can then paint or patina the pipes, thread the wire and assemble as usual. Should be realitively simple and cheap, and will let me use the fixtures I like without worrying about hanging height.

Flo - I wish it was just the light itself...we renovated our kitchen. It was connected to 2 family rooms. Almost fully open to a small family room on one side, and a small doorway (32” opening) on the other side. We are a family of 5 and no one ever used the larger family room bc of that small opening. It seemed cut off from the rest of the house. We opened up that side, added a breakfast part and stools so it’s now a useable part of the house. We hired a kitchen designer. That was our mistake. He did a great job with the kitchen...but we needed someone to look at the big picture. I started to realize this after it was too late. Everything was going in. I kept thinking I’ll find a way to pull it together when the kitchen’s done and yesterday when I put the 2nd light up I realized how hard it will be ... I am in way over my head. It’s a very long open space. Open floor plan gone badly. I’m beside myself. I need to now just focus on finishing the last few details in the kitchen and bring in some different interior decorators, designers ... I’m not sure what - to figure out how to fix this.

I will say Edison bulbs are the most horrible lighting ever and there is areason they went the way of the dodo . I like good lighting that actually lights the table and the other thing with Edison buls is they cast a yellow glow on everything so colrs you love in the daytime become yucky at night. I need to see the rest of your home this is one space and needs to work with the others I am getting no feel for your style except for atable.

If you raise it, will it light the entire stairwell? Even around the turn of the stairs at the lower point? Something to consider: You could measure the length of the chain from the ceiling piece and hold the light there to see if you could place a cup hook in the ceiling almost there (but not quite -- just shy of that chain's distance) so you can hang the light farther away and still have it over the bend in the stairs IF that resolves the lighting "problem" likely prompting the lower hanging light. .