Those are beautiful and in my opinion, an island that size and shape can handle 3. It'll look gorgeous.

An island that long could definitely have 3...but it would also depend upon how many other pendant lights you have in your kitchen. Too many would make the celing area very busy. In our area, the regular lights also "count" against you as they are not energy efficient lighting and we can only have 50% of our total wattage as regular lighting.

With pendants that large, two will be plenty over a 7' island. Our island is 7'x5' and we have 2 9" wide pendants over it, as well as a couple resessed lights over the working side.

If we had chosen smaller pendants(like 5-6") then 3 would have looked nice, but with full sized ones, two was a nice fit over our 7' island.

I agree that it depends on what else you have going for lights. We have 3 pendants of that size for our whole kitchen. The 2 by the island are about 4 ft apart, and they light a 4 ft aisle, the 4 ft wide island, and the other 4 ft wide aisle...So that kind of spacing could work if you want to keep it simple. If you have 3, you'll have them pretty close to each end. I think either could look OK, because you're kind of on the line between '2 does the job' and 'needs 3.' Are they your only lights, or are they augmented by recessed cans? Looking at Alku's island and thinking yours is over 70% longer, I think 3 is probably best.

If your space is far enough along, you could do what I did and craft some mock up lights out of string and cardboard or paper plates and see what you like?

Thanks! Btw, alku05 I love your counters. Are they marble or granite? We're looking for a creamy granite that looks like marble (I can't take the etching!).

Yes, Rhome, I agree we're kind of on the boarder between 2 does the job and needs 3. We won't have any other pendants in the kitchen, but we will have recessed lights around the perimter of the island. Since the island is so large, I just don't want those pendants to looked dwarfed by the island. At the same time, I don't want the pendants to look too clustered together. I figure that if we do 3 pendants, we can hang the 2 outer ones about 18 inches on center in from the edges of the island, and put the 3d in between those 2 so that edge to edge, they are about 38" apart. If we did 2 pendants, then we could hang the 2 outer ones about 24 inches on center from the edges of the island, and that would leave 76 inches between the edges of the 2 pendants. Is that too far a gap? Is the 38" too close together? The kitchen itself is pretty large (17x24). It's funny how many "little" decisions there are to agonize about. This is just one of many, but I'm sure you all know that!

Oh, yeah, alku05's granite is gorgeous!! I searched and searched for some. I think it's called Andromeda White, and there's NONE in New England right now (or as of last month).

FWIW, we used 2 small pendants over our island, because 2 was technically enough for light needed, and I was worried about cluttering up the ceiling too much. but I really wish we'd used 3 (or one large one). I just think it would have looked more balanced. Two seem kind of lonely.

My island is 12 feet long too. My pendants are 9 inches in diameter.

I love your kitchen Erika. My dilema is that the 2 sizes they have this pendant in is 7.5" or 13". I think that 7.5" would be too small, even with 3, and 13" is bordering on too big. I wish they made something in between. Looking at your kitchen though, I'm thinking that our 12' island could handle 3 13" pendants if we start them closer to the edge. Erika, could you please tell me how far apart your pendants are? How far from the edge of your counter do they start?
Stacey, I kinda know what you mean about 2 seeming lonely. For some reason, I like things in odd numbers.

Thanks!

Hi gobruno,

I just went and measured and the lights are about 43 inches apart, measuring from the centers. From the edge of the island to the center of the first fixture is about 30 inches.

Your fixtures are 2 inches wider on each side than mine, which to me doesn't seem that much bigger. Plus your island is a lot wider than mine. I agree that you if you space them a little farther apart they'll look great.

HTH!

Erika

My guess is 3 pendants for a 12 foot island, but what I did for mine was hang 2 balloons up, then 3 balloons up and see which we liked the best and which ones were not in the way of the can lights.

I totally misread your OP and thought your island was 7'x4'! With it being 12', go with 3 pendants.

My granite is indeed Andromeda White. It is very similiar in appearance to Bianco Romano, but with less movement. We couldn't be more pleased with it- absolutely no staining or etching. It isn't as heart-stopping as marble, but I'm too much of a slob for marble because the etching would bother me.

i agree, definitely three. especially that particular pendant. my island is 6' x 10' wide and i'm using two 14" lanterns. i never thought they'd look so large at 14" but they're MONSTERS (in a good way).

so how far along are you? or, what i really mean to ask is, when do we get to SEE? nothing interesting going on at my house except tyvek!

isnt the decorating rule like plants.. odd numbers unless trying to make symettrical.. i say 3 to give it the balanced decor feel :-)

Thanks for all the input. I seriously need it bc I'm driving myself crazy running around in circles in my head! Progress pictures?!? We haven't even broken ground yet! We're scheduled to break ground early to mid Sept. Right now, we are finalizing all of our choices to a very fine level of detail so that there isn't any ambiguity as to what we want and where the final price should be. At least that's the idea. I feel like I have an infinite amount of patience and love for this stuff, but even my head started spinning at the lighting store and everything started to blur together. Houses go up pretty quickly around here though, and we're supposed to be in the house by end of March. Hard to believe, but that's pretty typical around here. We sold our current house and will be cramming our family into a tiny tiny rental starting Sept. It should be interesting. Ok, I'm thinking 3 13" pendants. Now, I'm going to try to track down Andromeda White counters....