Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

| By | | 229 Comments

Adding Three New Kitchen Pendant Lights

Alternate title: spending a junkload of money on lights, but feeling pretty good about it.

You guys know we’ve been excited to replace the light fixtures in our kitchen, and, well, the time is now. Decisions have been made. Light fixtures have been bought. And dreams have come true. We’re planning to keep all three of the new lights after our big Phase 2 renovation, so instead of skimping on placeholders we opted to go all-in on three things that we really love – and that we’ll hopefully remain in love with for the long haul. We’d like for all three of the new lights to relate to each other and “play nice” but actually don’t want any of them to match, since they all serve different functions. Each of these three areas call for a different solution, so…

Lights Arrows

  • over the sink we knew we’d like a glass pendant in place of that mini fluorescent (won’t block the view, will gleam when sun shines in, etc)
  • for the larger and boxier fluorescent in the middle of the cooking area we knew we wanted a semi-flush mounted shade (the old fixture’s half-assembled here, since we popped off the cover to be sure the wiring was centered – but you can see the full wood-boxed glory here)
  • for the area over the table… well, we’ve had our sights set on a certain rope chandelier for a while now

Yes, we had been pining for this large 24 x 24″ rope chandelier for months (how sweet will that look over our weathered wood kitchen table?). So after a lot of hemming and hawing, we just pulled the trigger and shelled out the most we’ve ever spent on a light in the name of love and this forever home of ours.

Rope Chandelier

We originally saw it for $460 here, and then found it for $391 here, and then when it popped up on Joss & Main for $360 with free shipping… well, we figured $100 off was as good as it got. So we clicked “order” and felt pretty excited about going for something we’ve wanted for so long. I hope we’re 101 and still eating omelettes under this thing.

As for over the sink, we thought any glass pendant with oil-rubbed bronze hardware would be awesome – and would easily pair with our attention-grabbing chandelier (we didn’t want anything too busy or colorful over the sink fighting for attention), so one trip to Home Depot turned up our winner:

Pendant Light

He was $69 (not sure why it’s only available in silver and $79 online, but they had a “dark bronze” one in our store for $69) and we think it’s just the right amount of dapper but not too demanding.

Then it was down to choosing our semi-flush mount shade, which was by far the biggest challenge. In other words, if this post were a movie, the music montage would start here and you’d see us running into small shops, big box stores, typing away on our laptops, trolling craigslist, etc. There weren’t too many options that were big enough (remember we’re replacing a giant boxy fluorescent light, so a tiny boob lamp won’t do), and although we considered adding can lights, our kitchen is actually nice and bright – it has four windows to the outside world, which is 100% more than our last two kitchens (they both had a single window over the sink that looked into a sunroom). So we liked the idea of a shade to keep things cozy and casual. Here’s what all that searching turned up:

Five Shades

  1. This 15″ natural shade for $99 (John and I cut a 15″ sheet of paper out and held it up to the ceiling, which immediately looked too tiny… so we kept looking)
  2. This 17″ shade for $155 from Overstock (this one was a little bigger, but still not as large as we’d like)
  3. This awesome quatrefoil flush mount one from Circa lighting (it’s $693, so yeah… just for inspiration)
  4. This nice 17″ caged shade for $239 (it wasn’t any bigger than the second shade, but we did like the hardware around it)
  5. This bigger 24″ burlap quatrefoil-shaped shade for $130 at a local lighting outlet (the same one with brown trim goes for nearly double that at Shades of Light)

Wanna guess which guy we went with?

Words, words, words.

More words.

These words are just here so you can guess and don’t see the next visual.

More words.

Even more words.

Wiggedy words and verbs.

I probably gave it away with my descriptions anyway.

Yup, I definitely did.

Poker face Petersik, they call me. 

And the winning combo is:

Light Trio

Except of course the scale is all off. The shade is actually 24″ wide, as is the big rope chandelier for over the table, but the chandelier hangs down a lot more, so it gets to be the star while the quatrefoil pendant will hopefully add some warmth and interest while balancing the other side of the room (and the glass pendant over the sink will add a nice soft glow by the window). Here’s a shot of it in the store where we saw it. Ours is the one on top of the stack since we thought the color would tie into the rope chandelier nicely.

Lighting Outlet

Oh man, I hope they look good when they’re actually hanging up. Just have some ceiling patching and painting to do, along with a little electrical tweaking, and it’s GO TIME, BABY.

Psst- A few folks were asking on Instagram for some specific info about how we introduced Burger to Clara, and how we tried to make the whole transition from living with a dog to living with a dog and a baby as smooth as possible for all parties involved – so we’re over on Young House Life chatting about that today.

Comments

  2. Bethany Annechino says

    Would it be nuts of me to think perhaps you should spray ScotchGuard on the fabric shade? Just in case there is a totally possible scenario like a pot of pasta sauce exploding or something. Normal stuff. NBD.

    Reply

  3. Avone says

    I’ve always worried about shades in a kitchen. Do they not get all grimy and greasy? Can anyone with experience speak for them?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Anyone have experience with this for Avone? I think it depends on your range hood, but we had white cabinets in our first and second house without any grease building up on those (which were right next to the range) so we hope we won’t have issues with it drifting over a few feet to the light. Someone mentioned we could scotch guard it, which sounds like a good idea too!

      xo
      s

  5. Koliti says

    I like the rope chandelier – am I the only one who’s first thought was, “hey you can hang some cool stuff from the bottom rung” – like Christmas ornaments, paper flowers, instagram pics. For $360 – it’s like $1/day – and I don’t think you could easily DIY the frame unless you knew how to weld. If/when the rope should fail or you tire of it, then in the future, I can perfectly see you DIY a re-incarnation of it by weaving/hanging something else in/on/from the frame. Now my DIY question is – have you ever thought of making a hanging light fixture from a bicycle tire?

    Reply

  6. Ann says

    We remodeled our kitchen last year and I want to mention the best decisions we made:
    1) recessed lighting
    2) venting the range hood to the outdoors It is not hard to DIY)
    3) under cabinet lighting

    I know you mentioned all of the windows in your kitchen, BUT… every day is not sunny and from November-March it gets dark by 6PM. I strongly recommend that you increase your lighting in the next phase. My previous kitchen had very similar lighting to yours and it is so much better now. Food for thought…

    Reply

  7. KarenH. says

    Nice choice of lights :) I personally preferred #4 over #5, but I understand why you chose as you did. And now I won’t feel all guilty buying the same pendant light for over my sink and buying #4 to change out my fluourescent light box (wood LOOK, I didn’t even get real wood :D )

    Now I just need to buy a stainless vent hood to replace the olive green one with the jet engine inside :)

    Reply

  9. Jonia says

    Haha, I love it when you bring up boob lights ;p When I first read one of your posts two/three years ago, I was shocked. I thought my husband and I were the only ones who referred to them as boob lights! I was pregnant with our second child a little over 10 years ago and shopping at a large “general” store with a limited lighting selection when we began noticing the similarity teehee

    Reply

  10. Dana says

    Excellent choices! The kitchen transformation this far is incredible…and it’s only phase one! Can hardly wait to see what else is in store. But all three fixtures are going to look fab in there.

    Reply

  11. Jackie says

    Wondering if you could provide some insight on how you’re able to plan for lighting in advance of determining the long term layout? (This is maybe really obvious to everybody else but I don’t know anything about this kind of stuff and love getting to live vicariously through your workflow :) Does the placement of lights in a kitchen depend on where appliances are or is it all fairly standard? I guess I’m confused about how you know you won’t need two smaller semi-flush mounted shades, or 3 pendant lights, or pendants that match the rope shade because they’ll end up closer together, etc. Does the metal finish of the light have to match the cabinet pulls? Do you know what type of cabinets you’ll be going for? If you end up with all cool colors in your phase 2 – will the mounted shade still match?

    Can’t wait to see everything installed! :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Great questions! I think we always love a mix of warm and cool in a room, so for example our first kitchen had a warm toned jute rug and warm wood floors along with cool counters and cabinets and walls, so that balance appeals to us, whether the counter goes cool or warm (or other elements that we add in Phase 2 do) it’s safe to assume that we’ll have a mix of both tones going on. As for additional lighting, we’d love to do under-cabinet lights, so those will help to specifically illuminate work surfaces, no matter what new configuration we do, but a few general ceiling fixtures (over the sink, and centered on either side of the room) seem like nice “staples” that we hope will layer really easily into a second phase down the line.

      xo
      s

    • Jackie says

      Very interesting – thanks for the reply (especially this late in the day!) I think I’m just overwhelmed by all of the options that exist for a kitchen! (What if you go for some dramatic one of a kind stone for your countertops that has x color in it or what if french doors you want to put in only come in x colors so to match the cabinets you have a smaller set of options, etc.) It would cool for you to document some of the layouts you’re contemplating now so that you can compare it to what you end up with (and validate the benefit of taking time to plan it through by living in the space).
      Also, I just realized that your view from the front door will feature your new favorite rope fixture over the table. Seeing it that way that often will be such a nice feeling I’m sure so I’m glad you opted for something you love so much. :) Best,

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw thanks Jackie! Good luck with everything! In general I think one decision informs another, so don’t worry about making them all at once or later living to regret them. Rooms tend to evolve very slowly over time for us, yet somehow things click together like a puzzle that you’re building as you go.

      xo
      s

  12. Michelle M says

    We have that same light from Home Depot! We have a tiny eat in kitchen and have it over our table. I love it. We use the Edison lightbulb that came with it and it’s totally fine. I think since you have other lighting in your kitchen and you have lots of windows you will be more than fine with brightness!

    I’m happy I finally picked something before you guys instead of “Hey, the young house love people got this (did this, made this), what do you think?” conversation I usually have with my husband. Haha!

    Reply

  14. Dina says

    Looks great so far. Here’s an idea. Apologies if it’s already been suggested or discussed, I haven’t had a chance to read through all the comments. Anyway, on the back wall of cabinets where there’s flat wood, all the way to the right by the window. Would a door panel from the cabinets you removed fit there? It would give the illusion that it was originally a full wall of cabinets. Just a thought.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Yes we’d add a fake door there except we’re planning to float shelves there (on either side of the window) so they should fill that space nicely and won’t overlap a door there :)

      xo
      s

  16. Avery k says

    We are trying to figure out how to change out our fluorescent light in our kitchen so I can’t wait to see how you guys do it!!

    By the way… You guys have got to stop finding such great deals at that local lighting outlet!!! Such a tease! ;)

    Reply

  17. Katie says

    We’ve been on the hunt for options to replace all of the lights in our house that need to stay close to the ceiling (because of doors or walking clearance). We had just started to accept the fact that there was nothing appealing out there in this category. Thank you so much for doing all of the hard work! I can’t wait to show these to my husband and get rid of our current eyesores!

    Reply

  18. Bekah says

    Oooh Beautiful choices!

    We have a VERY similar fluorescent light in our kitchen (the bigger one) AND we have its three siblings scattered throughout the house! Isn’t that just a fun little family reunion? I cant wait to break it up. Did your have a fun blue flower vine feature on the sides? Ours sure does…and man is it ever awful.

    Reply

  19. ElizabethAnn says

    I can’t wait to see what the kitchen looks like without that big box light. I have one in my kitchen and I’d like to get rid of it someday. Can I ask you, will you have to paint the entire kitchen ceiling when you take the big box light out?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh yeah, our ceiling is a mess (there are big holes we need to patch) so it needs it! If you have matching ceiling paint to just touch up those spots when a light comes down.

      xo
      s

  20. Gina says

    LOVE your lighting choices! They coordinate beautifully without being match-matchy at all! I hope I can make an equally good choice when it comes to doing away with the horrible boob light in our front entry and switching out the not-my-style chandelier in the adjacent dining room!

    But in our kitchen thats under renovation right now, I did choose matching schoolhouse pendants to go over the main sink and the prep sink. They are the only pendants and because they are both doing the exact same job, I think it worked best to pick matching fixtures.

    Have a peek: http://www.itshappenstance.com

    Reply

  21. Justine Moore says

    The kitchen already looks amazing- you should be so proud of yourself! It’s so open and light. So many of those light fixtures are beautiful too, I would never be able to choose.

    Reply

  22. Kirsten Oliphant says

    I would just like to suggest that on behalf of all “Bring It On” fans, you employ the use of cheer-vernacular in some of your posts. Consider the following example.

    You said: “Light fixtures have been bought.”

    Bring It On update: “Light fixtures have already been boughten.”

    Just a suggestion.

    Reply

  23. Natalie says

    If you didn’t buy that Selamat light that long ago you should try and get a refund because right now it’s even cheaper! See if they will give you the different because it’s a $100 difference.

    Reply

Stuff We Love

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *