Choosing a Chandelier

The overly ornate fixture that set the author off in search of the perfect chandelier to match her 1950s Cape Cod-style house.

The one jarring note in our otherwise simple, seamless dining room gleams brightly over the table. The room is a straightforward rectangle painted in soft colors of cream and yellow, with a large multi-paned window and a simple Shaker-style table and chairs. The jarring note is the ornate brass chandelier, with elaborate curly-cues and a highly polished finish. It’s not just that it’s not my style, it’s not the house's style.

Our house is a spacious 1950s Cape Cod, with big windows and hardwood floors and knotty pine doors with black wrought-iron hinges and thumb-press door handles. It’s a comfortable, casual house, and the very formal, traditional chandelier just isn’t in character.

The choices for a replacement, though, are completely overwhelming. A quick search on the web and at some local lighting stores unearths so many different styles and sizes that I can’t believe it. There are crystal chandeliers, Tiffany stained-glass chandeliers, Colonial Revival chandeliers, teacup chandeliers plus a host of contemporary options, including a classic Poulsen design that looks like an upside-down artichoke.

In addition, it seems there are now chandeliers for almost every room of the house: foyers, dining rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, breakfast nooks and bedrooms. I have no idea where to begin. To figure it all out, of course, I called several design and lighting experts and asked for some chandelier tips.

Lighting expert Cheryl Katz suggested McCleary consider the Cellula (www.mossonline.com). "It's an extremely modern take on a traditional crystal chandelier."

Follow your home’s architectural style. True, "if you have a beautiful old Georgian-style home and throw a modern chandelier in there, it will feel fresh and exciting," says Karl Lohnes, a Toronto-based interior designer and a co-host of HGTV’s This Small Space, "but in five years you might want to change it."

Unless you’re open to replacing your chandelier every time you redecorate, look for one that matches your home's era and architecture. At the website for Portland, Ore., lighting manufacturer Rejuvenation (www.rejuvenation.com) has a "lighting wizard" that will walk you through a series of questions about your house's age and architectural style to help direct you to styles best suited to your home (I found this to be amazingly accurate. It directed me to one reproduction fixture, the Tibbetts, that was featured on the cover of a 1957 lighting catalogue: My house was built in 1957).

Choose the right size for your room. Lohnes uses a simple equation: Measure the width of your room. The chandelier should be two inches in diameter for every foot of width. A 12-foot wide dining room, then, would work best with a chandelier that’s 24 inches in diameter; a 10-foot wide space would call for a chandelier approximately 18 to 24 inches in diameter. Other experts offer a similar formula: Add the dimensions of the room together, and that number in inches is the width of the chandelier that best fits the room. So a 10-by-12 foot room would call for a 22-inch wide chandelier.

Consider too, the chandelier’s style in selecting the right size. For example, "if a chandelier is extremely ornate, even if it’s smaller than what you might imagine, it can work in a large room," says Cheryl Katz, co-author of Chandeliers (Rockport, 2001), and co-owner of Boston-based design company C&J Katz Studio. The ornate features give it a different kind of weight.

If you’re really having trouble deciding on the right number of arms and the best size, make a model to scale out of paper or cardboard, suggests Rejuvenation's Chris Wilson. "As dorky as that sounds, it can really help." Wilson once had a customer in Newfoundland who was interested in purchasing a large, expensive ($2,400) chandelier. The cost of shipping alone was more than $300 and the client was concerned about all the money involved if the chandelier really didn’t look right once it arrived. "So he made one out of pieces of kindling and old flowerpots and hung it in their space before he ordered," Wilson says.

For eating areas, consider the size and shape of your table in picking the right chandelier. The chandelier should be approximately one-third the width of the table, says Lohnes. So a 5-foot round dining table would call for a chandelier with a diameter of 20 inches. Oval or rectangular tables can take a slightly wider chandelier, such as a pendant style with two or more pendants. A round chandelier, the most classic shape, is terrific with a round table.

Hang the chandelier so that the bottom of the chandelier is roughly 30 inches from the top of the table. "That ensures that the chandelier doesn’t encroach on your view of your dining companions, and it gives you space to fit a vase of flowers or another tall centerpiece," Lohnes says. "Most people hang chandeliers way too high." Also, be sure that the chandelier is centered over the table and not in the middle of the room. If you’ve got a hutch or sideboard against one wall, as most people do, your table will likely be pulled out slightly from the exact center of the room, and everything will look off-kilter if the chandelier hangs exactly dead center.

Think about how much light you need for your space. The chandelier is usually only one part of the lighting. In a dining room, pot lights in the ceiling or track lights can add extra wattage if you use the space for projects and homework as well as candlelit dinners. Perimeter lighting, such as sconces or buffet lamps, can add even more illumination. In most cases, it’s best to put your chandelier on a dimmer switch, so you can change the intensity of the lighting for various uses.

Study current trends. "Oh, why not? Think outside the box," says Wilson. "Crystal chandeliers used in modern settings look great," says Cheryl Katz. "So do rustic, slightly decrepit chandeliers. If anything, I notice that people are more interested now in unexpected mixes than in a particular style." Karl Lohnes says that very ornate French style chandeliers in dark gold or bronze finishes strung with crystals or jewels are trendy now, as are fancy all glass chandeliers.

After all this exploring, I’ve narrowed it down to two options. The first is making a chandelier using my 1950s Fiestaware teacups and saucers and an old chandelier base. This would definitely be colorful and in keeping with the casual style of the house. The other is a sleek and classy polished nickel chandelier I found online, with five arms and ivory glass shades that has a very contemporary 1950s look. Maybe I’ll dig up some cardboard and make some models? Find out more about Kathy McCleary.

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