I have a few Home Depot lights and they have been OK (in hallways and laundry). Have you checked West Elm? I have three West Elm lights in our city condo (very modern) and they look fabulous and have held up great. Everyone always ooohs and ahhhs over them.

This is similar tho not exact and $100.

M

Ooh, I do like that West Elm pendant -- thanks, Michelle! I'll have to email customer service and ask about the mounting plate, though. (The pic online shows it as chrome-like, but I think it needs to be antique bronze to match the hardware inside the shade.)

Well, if you do wind up going HD, everyone around here uses their lights (I presume you mean Hampton Bay, since they carry many brands that are the same you'd get elsewhere), and nobody has had a problem that I've ever heard about.

FWIW, I have some Minka Lavery pendant lights in the bathroom that rusted from excess humidity.

I have that exact light from Home Depot. Actually, I have two over my island. I wanted something in glass, to put out as much light as possible. Also, I liked that it doesn't obstruct the view into the kitchen, which is one reason I hadn't done pendants up until now. I think we bought a higher wattage bulb than the one that came with it (but it's still same style bulb). So far it's been fine. It looked a lot like pendant lights in a high end house I toured, and had taken a picture of. Also, if I change in a few years, I won't feel any guilt over the price.

Just think very seriously if you can handle the glare of the exposed bulbs. Those oh-so-pretty clear shades are so alluring they're hard to resist, but many here have had issues with their clear shades and had to change out the fixtures after the fact because of that. They can be hard to get away from because they are extremely popular right now.

As to HD lights in general, I've had them in the kitchen and bedrooms before. Never had a problem. But do go in and touch one IRL as the quality can be very cheap from what I've seen in my recent trips down the lighting aisles there.

We hung ours a little higher to keep glare from being an issue (we're not tall people also). They're on a dimmer, but haven't used that feature too much. The glare was a concern, but hasn't been a problem so far. The quality also seems fine on these as far as the feel, etc.

The unobstructed view is exactly what I'm after, but the glare does worry me, breezy. Also the fact that the light goes out, not just down. (Ie, not sure if it'll be effective task lighting.) I'm glad the glare hasn't been a problem for you, lakegirl. (Do you have pictures??) The pendants will be on a dimmer, so I hope that'll help if we find it annoying.

I just snapped a picture of the lights (sorry if they're too big). We needed all the light we could get in the kitchen, so I wanted the light to go out, not just down. We hung them about 38in. above the surface of the island. I'm not sure if this is standard, we just held them up until it felt right. I was hesitant of pendant lights, because I didn't want to visually break up the room, plus we needed all the light we could get. These sort of serve both purposes. We hung them above our eye level, so you're not looking into them. Our ceilings are 9ft, if that matters. Choosing a pendant can really halt progress :)

They look terrific lake_girl! Will go see them in person at HD, but I think I'm already sold. Thanks so much for the visual. (And I love your white cabs with green walls!)