Hi - I'm looking for some ideas of a light for our foyer. During construction, we had thought we'd end up putting a hanging foyer light here - something hanging from the ceiling on a long cord, down to about the second floor. But when it was finished, we realized that the space was actually pretty narrow - it's about 32" from the bannister on the "cat walk" to the staircase railing. The length of the opening is about 12'.

I'm tempted to leave it without a light, but right now, the switches for the lighting on the ceiling at the second floor are all on the second floor - because, of course, when we were planning the lighting and light switches, we had intended there to be a hanging foyer light that would have switches at the bottom and top of the stairs. Without that, the only way to turn on the lighting on the walkway on the second floor is to go up the stairs (in the dark) and turn it on up there. Not a huge deal, but not the safest either, especially for our kids.

thank you for your ideas! Do you think that a hanging light is still the way to go? Or, perhaps we should just put a semi-flush or flush-mount on the ceiling, just to cover the need for lighting when going up and down dark stairs?

Our style tends more to contemporary/clean lines, if anyone has ideas.