Chandelier lighting is one of the oldest, most beautiful and elegant forms of lighting a room. The earliest forms of chandeliers date back to medieval times where they were used to light places of assembly. The earliest forms were nothing more than a wooden cross suspended from the ceiling by a rope or chain with each end of the cross supporting a candle. Later, around the 18th century, advances in glassmaking allowed for economical production of lead crystals and crystal chandelier lighting. The ability of this highly refractive glass to spread and scatter light quickly made them a popular choice (ie, the crystal chandelier).
In the 19th century the wax candle started to give way to gas as a source of light. And by the late 1800s, you start to see a combination of the gas/electric chandeliers ready to accommodate whatever lighting was available.
Clearly modern chandelier lighting has come along way since those times. Of course the source of power for our lights today is 100% electricity. However, in today’s greener environmental mindset, there has continued to be developments in chandeliers to incorporate greener technologies such as LED (or Light Emitting Diodes), which use significantly less energy than your standard incandescent lightbulb. Also, fiber-optic chandeliers have become quite popular for many with her intricate designs and programmable multi-color displays.
Even if you’re not in the market for one of these more cutting-edge, modern style chandeliers, and are rather interested in what might be considered a more “standard” chandelier lighting setup for your home, there are a few things you should know about selecting the proper sized chandelier for the room in which you plan to hang it.
For example, if the room is smaller than 100 square feet (10 x 10′), the diameter of your chandelier probably shouldn’t be much more than 20 inches (ideally somewhere between 17 to 20 inches). If the room is a bit larger, say 12′ x 12′, you would be safe with a chandelier of about 26 inches to 27 inches in diameter. The size of 14 x 14′, 24 to 36 inches is a good size. Another variable to consider when sizing your chandelier is in relation to the width of the table over which it is going to hang. A good rule of thumb is to keep The chandelier about 12 inches narrower than the table.
As far as the height at which to hang the light chandelier, you should probably need to hang it about 30 inches above the surface of the table. At this height can feel confident in getting both good illumination of the table as well as avoiding the problem of people bumping their heads up against it. And speaking of illumination, aiming for a total wattage of all bulbs in your chandelier to equal somewhere between 200 and 400 W will ensure you excellent lighting of your table surface.
One thing that many people like to do, and in fact is highly recommended when it comes to such a central piece of lighting for a room, is to have it installed on a dimmer switch. This will allow you to control the intensity of the light reaching anywhere from bright light for projects and homework for the kids (for example), to the subtlest, low-light levels giving a true romantic ambiance for those special occasions.
With the wide range of styles, makes and models of chandelier light fixtures from the top lighting manufacturers such as Kichler, Sea Gull, Hammersmith, Kenroy, Quoizel and many more, there’s no doubt you will be able to find, and enjoy, the perfect chandelier lighting arrangement for your home or office.