Pendant Lights for Your Kitchen Island: What to Know Before You Buy
Pendant lighting for a kitchen island is one of the best ways to add architectural and aesthetic value to your contemporary kitchen. As kitchen islands have become the centrepiece of kitchens throughout Canada and the rest of the world, it has made it useful to brush up on your knowledge to how to best accentuate this prominent part of your home with the proper use of pendant lighting. In this blog post, we will go over the many different varieties of pendant lights you may find in a kitchen, and then discuss fine details such as how many pendants can hang over a kitchen island, how low those kitchen lights can hang, and more.
Kitchen pendant lights come in many styles and shapes. Some are a classic globe or teardrop shape, while others are more evocative of different objects, such as lanterns or upside-down bowls. While some hang independently of one another—as like a grouping of several pendant necklaces—others are linked by a bar that runs across their tops, making for a more concrete silhouette. While some pendant lights can add substantial visual weight to a kitchen, using elements such as golden or silver metals to bring attention to the kitchen island, others are understated and hang in simple glass enclosures, appearing to exist like magic over the centrepiece of the room.
People often ask our Toronto kitchen designers how many pendant lights can hang over their kitchen island. The answer is that it depends. While it is normal to have anywhere from two to four pendant lights, the exact number can vary with the size of the lights and the size of your island. The larger your island, the more lights that would be needed to sufficiently illuminate it and draw attention to its full size—if you have too few lights, your island may look too large for the rest of your kitchen. Conversely, the smaller your island, the fewer lights that would be needed—getting exactly the right number of lights to suit and match your island helps make a kitchen fit together well. Remember to also consider the other elements in your kitchen: for example, if you have a wonderful showstopping hood over your stovetop, you may want to go for one less pendant light than your normally would, so as not to block the sightline from your kitchen doorway to your hood over the expanse of your island.
How low your kitchen lights can hang may also take into account your kitchen’s other elements. Depending on how high your kitchen cabinets are, you may wish to position the top of your pendant lights in line with the cabinet tops, align the middle of your lights with the bottom of a high cabinet, or a variety of other options. If your hood blends in harmoniously with the rest of your kitchen, you may also choose to have a pendant light or two in front of it—if you do, you may wish to match the tops of your pendant lights with the bottom of your hood. But what ever you do, make sure that your pendant lights do not hang so low that people will bump their heads against them! Consider how large your island is and how high traffic its centre may be—if you do a lot of serving in the middle of your island, you may not want your pendant lights so close to the food your guests will be grabbing. However, if instead people usually just eat breakfast on the edges of your island, you may not need to worry as much. Regardless, there are many complementary elements in your kitchen that can impact how low or high your pendant lights hang.
Yorkville Design Centre has access to a variety of skilled lighting professionals to help find the best lighting options for your kitchen. Our team of seasoned designers is also happy to discuss these options and find which works best with the rest of the elements you choose. Our professional, trained installers will then make sure your pendant lighting is installed to your exact specifications, including the all-important height that you want. As we work with many local suppliers, you can rest assured that as your go-to kitchen & interior design Toronto experts, we will always recommend the best pendant lighting for kitchen islands in Canada.
