Pendant Light for a Kitchen Renovation: Pick Before Wiring

Choose the pendant light for a kitchen renovation before first fix wiring, because the drop positions get set while the ceiling is open and the ceiling is only open once. Two 11.8 in (30 cm) pendants suit a 6 to 7 ft island and three suit an 8 ft island or longer, hung so the bottom edge of each shade sits 30 to 36 in above the finished worktop. Colour, bulb and dimmer are all afternoon decisions you can make with the kitchen already in.

Why is the lighting always the last thing anyone decides?

You are renovating and you do not know when to pick the lights or where the drops should go. Nobody tells you, because the kitchen conversation is all doors, handles and worktop, and then an electrician turns up on a Tuesday to run the cables and asks where you want the pendants. Most people answer with a guess, or with a single rose in the middle of the room, and the plasterboard goes up over it. The pendants themselves get chosen much later, off a carousel of pictures, and by then the only variable left is what colour the shade is.

At Houseland we believe the decisions that last are the ones made while the ceiling is still open, which is why the shade diameter, 9.8 in (25 cm) or 11.8 in, and the socket type sit on the product page above the six colour options. A drop position is joinery. You can repaint a shade. You cannot repaint a hole in a finished ceiling.

When do you choose a pendant light for a kitchen renovation?

At the plan stage, with the joinery drawing in front of you, and well before the cables go in. The order matters more than the fixture, because most of what follows happens before anyone can see a light.

1. Fix the island on the plan first. A standard base cabinet is 24 in (61 cm) deep, so an island built from two back to back runs plus a worktop overhang is wider than the sketch usually admits, and every drop position is measured off that finished outline.
2. Pick the shade diameter and the socket before the finish. 9.8 in or 11.8 in changes how wide each pool of light falls, and an E27 screw socket keeps the bulb decision open for months.
3. Set the count from the island length. Two 11.8 in pendants for a 6 to 7 ft island, three for 8 ft or longer.
4. Chalk the drop centres on the joists, not on the plan and not on the plasterboard. Joists sit at 16 in (41 cm) on centre in most ceilings and they will not politely land where your marks do.
5. Walk the electrician round the marks at first fix. That conversation is the whole of the pendant decision, and it happens once.
6. Board, skim, then fit the kitchen. Pendant height is measured from the finished worktop, so the number you need does not exist until the worktop is in.
7. Hang the pendants at second fix. Set the cord with the worktop in place, fit an E27 bulb, and check the sightline from the far side of the island before you tighten anything.

The expensive version is the other order: kitchen in, worktop templated and fitted, then someone notices the ceiling has one rose in the middle of a room that now has an island under it.

Which shade fits a new island, 9.8 in or 11.8 in?

The 11.8 in shade for most residential islands, the 9.8 in (25 cm) for a narrow galley counter, a sink only drop or a bedside. Only the shade diameter changes between the two, so the socket, the cord and the six finishes are identical.

The wider shade earns its place over a work surface, because the light has to reach the edge of the worktop rather than a bedside table. If the room is a galley and the run is a 24 in (61 cm) counter rather than an island, one 9.8 in drop over the sink is often the entire plan.

Where exactly do the drops land over an island?

Centred across the width of the finished worktop, then divided evenly along its length, with the marks made on the joists before the board goes up. Width catches people out because the overhang for stools is usually on one side only: a 12 in (30 cm) overhang pulls the centre of the worktop away from the centre of the cabinets underneath, and the pendants follow the worktop.

Length is one sum, done once:

1. Measure the finished island length in inches.
2. Divide it by the number of pendants. That is the share of the island each one lights.
3. Mark each pendant in the middle of its own share. On an 84 in (213 cm) island with two pendants, each share is 42 in, so the marks land 21 in and 63 in from the same end.
4. Run a tape from the outside mark to the end of the island and check that the two end gaps match. If they do not, your first measurement took in the overhang at one end and not the other.

The reason to do the sum on paper is that once the plaster is on, moving a drop is a chase, a patch and a repaint, not a lighting decision. Longer islands are the same arithmetic with more marks, which is worked through in pendant light spacing over a kitchen island, and the pools should overlap slightly rather than leave a dark strip in the middle.

What does the electrician need from you at first fix?

Three things: the number of drops, the centre marks on the joists, and the worktop height they will be measured from. Everything else, the fixture, the finish, the bulb, can turn up weeks later.

Say the count out loud rather than pointing at the ceiling, because two drops and three drops are different cable runs. Then hand over the marks. If a joist lands exactly where a mark does, the electrician needs to know on the day so a batten or a box goes in before the board is fixed, and joists at 16 in (41 cm) on centre make that collision more common than people expect.

Ask for slack at each drop. A cable with a loop left in the void can be nudged after the island is set out on the floor; a cable cut to length cannot. It costs nothing on the day and it is the only thing that makes a later adjustment possible.

What you do not need to have decided: the shade colour, whether the room dims, or what bulb goes in. None of those live in the wall.

How high does the shade sit once the worktop is in?

Bottom edge 30 to 36 in above the finished surface, measured after the worktop is fitted. A worktop sits at roughly 36 in (91 cm) off the floor, so hold a tape at the counter, pencil both heights on the wall behind, and stand where you actually stand to see which one keeps the bulb out of your eye line.

Take the higher end when the pendant sits in a walking route or in the sightline between the island and the sofa, and the lower end when the island is a work surface first and the ceiling is a standard 8 ft (2.4 m). Over a dining table the same window applies for a different reason: the shade bottom has to clear the eye level of a seated adult so people can see each other across the table. Height and glare are one problem measured from two ends, which is why how high a pendant should hang above a kitchen island and why a pendant glares in your eyes end up covering the same tape measure.

Bulb choice is the last decision and the easiest to change. The socket is E27, the metric name for the medium screw base sold in the US as a standard screw-in, so a 2700 K bulb for a softer evening room or something nearer 3000 K to 4000 K for crisp countertop work threads into the same fixture. Dimming is not a property of the pendant: it needs a dimmable E27 LED and a wall dimmer rated for LED loads, and a non dimmable bulb will not dim whatever the dimmer cost. LED is also the sensible bulb inside a metal shade, because metal conducts heat from the bulb and an LED keeps the shade cooler to the touch.

What would I hang over my own island, and who should skip it?

From the shop

Compact Nordic E27 Metal Pendant Light - 6 Colors, 2 Shade Sizes

This is the Houseland pendant I would hang over an island: the 11.8 in (30 cm) shade for the wider pool of light, the 9.8 in (25 cm) for a galley counter or a sink drop. Both run on a standard E27 socket and an adjustable cord you set at 30 to 36 in above the worktop.

See the compact nordic e27 metal pendant light - 6 colors

The count rule is already published on the Houseland product page, so you can order before the joinery is in: two 11.8 in pendants for a 6 to 7 ft island, three for 8 ft or longer. That is the one decision that has to be right before the board goes up, and a tape measure answers it.

The socket is E27, the metric designation for the medium screw base sold on US shelves as A19 or standard screw-in, which leaves the bulb, the colour temperature and whether the room dims all open on the day the kitchen is finished.

Two shade diameters and six painted finishes, 9.8 in or 11.8 in in Black, White, Gray, Dark Blue, Light Blue or Pink, at 124.99 USD each. A two pendant island is a line you can price before the electrician quotes the drops.

It is the wrong pendant for several rooms, and one of them might be yours. A renter who cannot run new cable has no drop position to choose, and a flush mount on the existing ceiling point is the honest answer. A kitchen with no island and one central rose gains nothing from a pendant hung over a walkway. The shade is a downward focused dome, so it lights the worktop and leaves the ceiling dark: if this has to be the only light in the room, buy it alongside ceiling or under cabinet lighting rather than instead of it. And if you want a fixture that dims out of the box with no thought about bulbs, this is not it, because dimming depends on the E27 bulb and the wall dimmer behind it. If none of that rules it out, the same socket and adjustable cord run through the rest of the wall and ceiling lights, and the brightness question is worked through in what bulb goes in an E27 pendant over a kitchen island.

Shop wall lamps from Houseland

-20%Globe Wall Sconce with Switch, Pull Chain Glass Wall Lamp, 4 Shapes 4 Colorsfrom $104.46$130.58-20%Bear Nursery Wall Sconce, Adjustable Iron Wall Lamp with Wood Base, 8 Colorsfrom $97.89$122.36-20%Macaron Bedside Wall Sconce, Adjustable Wood Base Wall Lamp, 3 Shapes 13 Colorsfrom $86.47$108.09-20%Vanity Sconce with Exposed Globe Bulb, Adjustable Iron Wall Lamp, 5 Colorsfrom $72.22$90.28-20%Fluted Resin Hallway Sconce, Up Down Wall Light in 4 Colors, Two G9 Bulbsfrom $83.79$104.74Wood Flush Mount Ceiling Light, Walnut or Natural, Slim or Tall LED Fixturefrom $99.95

See all wall lamps →