I think the better question is how far from the floor. I have a pet peeve against pendant lights hung so low that you have to be sure to look between them if trying to have a conversation across a counter. And they should be high enough that a tall guest (such as 6'5") can easily see beneath them if standing near them. I have the same comment for range hood heights. My tall husband gets frustrated to duck to cook with some range hoods.Or, to bump his head if he forgets to avoid hitting it. lafdr

I highly recommend LED bulbs; we have about 100 3.6W MR16-style LED bulbs in our house in 3" mini-can housings, all at about 4500K (neither warm nor cool white). Each gives about as much light as a 35-40W halogen bulb. Our 19 x 21' kitchen has 15 for general lighting, plus the following task lighting: 4 over our 13' counter with main sink; 8 over our 5 x 9' main island; and 4 over our 3'3" x 9' small island. The 72" wide range hood came with ten 40W PAR20 bulbs but light a 9' wide area including range and landings; we'll be replacing the 40W bulbs with 5W dimmable LED bulbs. This is a good amount of light, not too much, not too little. Well, in the range hood area 50W of LED bulbs (equivalent to about 500W of halogen lights) is actually too much light but it's dimmable, not that my wife will use any setting but MAX. (There are also 10W LED bulbs available, but my wife has no self control when it comes to light and WILL burn out her retinas if I let her.) The standard medium base "Edison" bulb is not a form factor well suited to LEDs because while filaments (tungsten, halogen) are point sources and radiate in all directions, LEDs are VERY directional and have limited dispersion (15-60 degrees). Most LED medium base bulbs have more LEDs pointing outward with very few pointing up, some nearly exclusively point upward (downward in a pendant application). The distribution and "point" of the individual LEDs will affect whether the ambience (outward glow) or the task function (downward lumens) will work. Most pendant shades do have an inner white lining to even out the light distribution, and that will improve your downward light output for task lighting. LED color is tricky as well, as many are very cool white and won't give you that warm glow you expect from the pendant shade. A warm white (3000-3500K) bulb will give you the best ambience, whereas a pure white (4000-4500K) will give you the best task lighting. Another caution: pendants spaced too far apart look odd, but too close looks worse. I would recommend a spacing of about every 2-3'. Also, there should be ideally 3, or 4 max. Slimmer/smaller ones can be spaced a little closer and you can have more of them and still look fine. There are metallic shades (if modern works for your kitchen) that will give you a lot more task lighting. Here is a link that might be useful: [Houzz Pendant Light Ideabook[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/kitchen-islands-pendant-lights-done-right-stsetivw-vs~158689)

I have a 10 ft island that is placed off center and perpendicular to the pitch ceiling of my kitchen. There is a beam running the length of the ceiling at the apex. To hang 3 pendants centered over the island, one of the pendants has to be hung from the other side of the beam. Is this ok? I haven't been able to find any pictures online to help. Thanks!

HELP please... Placements of the pendants..... The pendants are not centered with the island. I have two options from our builder: Move the left one further out to match with the location of the right (closer to the edge of the island). Doing this would not space out evenly over the whole island because there would be more open space between the two pendants lights. Move both pendants over to the left to centered over the entire island? Doing this would make the right one be very close to the recessed light. oh, but I have some people advice to remove that one middle recessed light (I think it would probably look best), but my husband and I are not ready to lose a light right now.