The crown jewel of a room, a chandelier makes its surroundings sparkle and shine. It’s no wonder they remain popular among professional interior designers and DIYers.
“Anytime you can add decorative lighting to a space, it always makes it feel more custom and personalized,” says Alexis Pearl, who runs a namesake full-service interior design firm in Dallas. “Lighting makes a space more interesting. It’s a good way for clients to express their personality and to make a statement.” Large Bedroom Chandelier
Of course, you can go for the traditional crystal design, but chandeliers exist in every shape and style (and every price point). If you want to add a chandelier to your home but aren’t sure where to start, this guide will light the way.
Before you set out on a scavenger hunt for that statement piece, collect your thoughts — and a few images. “With my clients, I help them gather inspiration pics, either from Pinterest or Houzz, or a magazine, then we start to pinpoint their style,” says Courtney Warren, an interior designer based in Dallas.
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Look at the light fixtures in those photos, and chances are a pattern will emerge. You’ll see similar shapes and materials that will point you in a certain direction. Are you seeing formal glass and crystal, bohemian wooden beads or bubble bulbs on a linear Sputnik design?
“With our clients who lean more traditional, we’ll stick to traditional silhouettes and materials, such as fluted shapes and Venetian or Murano glass,” Pearl says. “Whereas if we are working with more contemporary clients, we prefer fixtures with a minimal silhouette and materials. Metals and plaster are a favorite.”
These days, chandeliers can go just about anywhere. “If an electrician can put a light there, you’ve got options,” Warren says.
Chandeliers are being placed in the traditional areas, such as dining rooms and over kitchen islands, but also in some unexpected spots. “We are using decorative lighting in primary bedroom closets, laundry rooms, pantries, hallways, really anywhere,” Pearl says.
The real showstoppers deserve the limelight. “With a more extravagant chandelier, that’s going to be your statement piece for the room,” explains Warren. “You don’t want other things that clash with the look. If you have an eye-catching chandelier and then you also have a rug that has a busy pattern, they’re going to compete for your eye.”
No matter what your chandelier is made of, it’s a good idea to incorporate some of that material (wood, metal, glass, etc.) throughout the room in accessories like drawer pulls. Don’t be afraid to mix metals.
Beyond materiality, another important consideration is shape — especially in a dining area. “A chandelier in the shape of the table will not only look better, it’ll better light the table,” recommends Roger Guzman of Crow Chandeliers, located in the Design District. “If you have a rectangular shaped table, you want to have at least an oval-shaped chandelier, if not rectangular.”
While formulas and online calculators can help determine the size you need, Guzman says those guidelines don’t work for every room. “I like to base the size of the chandelier on the size of the table, not the size of the room. You can have a really large dining room and a smaller table, and you don’t want a really large chandelier over a smaller table,” he says.
Generally speaking, the diameter of a dining room chandelier should be about one-half to two-thirds the width of the table it hangs above. But Guzman has a slightly different approach. “A lot of times we do a chandelier that’s at least six inches smaller than the width of the table, maybe even 30-32 inches over a table that’s 40 inches wide,” he says.
One of the most common mistakes people make is choosing a chandelier that’s the wrong scale, throwing the whole room off kilter. “People tend to get fixtures that are too small, then hang them too high,” says Guzman.
If you like a smaller chandelier but need more light and balance for your space, consider getting two.
While there are no hard and fast rules about hanging chandeliers, it may be best to start with the tried-and-true guidelines. “We generally start around 36 inches above a table, and as ceilings get higher, we bring the chandelier up. With lower ceilings, we’ll start closer to 33 inches,” Pearl says.
The 36-inch rule typically assumes an 8-foot ceiling. Raise the chandelier 3 inches for each additional foot of ceiling height, according to conventional wisdom.
When you’re ready to start sourcing, of course you can shop big box retailers and home improvement stores as well as all of the usual online resources from Lamps Plus to Lightology to Lumens. But for something more unique, Pearl suggests Julie Neill, a lightmaker in New Orleans who also has a line for Visual Comfort, one of Pearl’s go-to websites for different budgets and price points. For more contemporary projects, she heads to Apparatus and Urban Electric.
But don’t be afraid to go the untraditional route, including resale shops, vintage markets and antique fairs. Guzman says customers have brought his business everything from antlers to canoes to be made into a chandelier. “We do a lot of restoration, repairs and transformations. We are known for that here in Dallas,” he says.
Fish Chandeliers Here are more online sources for chandeliers, whether you’re already shopping or just need some inspiration: